Summit for nothing?

The punchline to yesterday’s eurosummit comes in the very first paragraph of the official statement, released in the darkness of morning:

“The euro continues to rest on solid fundamentals.”

Now that you’ve brushed away the tears from that one, what was it that was actually agreed upon in the end? The main measure is effectively a fiscal target for Greece: its national debt, expected to peak at around 180 per cent of GDP in 2013, will come down to 120 per cent by 2020. And this will be achieved by cutting the value of bonds held by private investors in half, alongside further waves of privitisation and Greek frugality. Brussels will strengthen its “monitoring capacity on the ground,” to ensure that Athens abides by these strictures.

The markets appear to have been mildly heartened by that, and by other measures including another €130 billion for Greece and an enormous expansion of the European Financial Stability Facility.