Germany

A day ahead of a crucial gathering of European Union leaders in Brussels, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have outlined their plan for solving the euro crisis through deeper fiscal integration, The Wall Street Journal Euro Crisis blog reported. In an open letter to European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, Mr. Sarkozy and Ms. Merkel issued an ultimatum to the 27 EU governments, saying they must decide whether they will accept greater central control over their national budgets.

If Commerzbank CEO Martin Blessing could make one wish, he would presumably ask for a few billion euros, or that someone would take the bank's ailing subsidiary Eurohypo off his hands, or that the entire sovereign debt crisis would simply disappear, Spiegel Online reported. But banks, along with their managers and owners, are not allowed to pin their hopes on miracles. They need money, as quickly as possible.

Seeking to restore confidence in the euro, the leaders of France and Germany jointly called on Monday for changes to the European Union treaty so that countries using the euro would face automatic penalties if budget deficits ran too high, the Los Angeles Times reported. But not everyone on Wall Street was reassured that Europe would get control of its 2-year-old debt crisis. Stock prices rose and borrowing costs for European governments dropped sharply in response to the changes proposed by French President Nikolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Manroland AG, the German printing- press maker that’s majority owned by Allianz SE, filed for insolvency, in the country’s biggest corporate failure since retailer Arcandor AG collapsed two years ago, Bloomberg reported. Manroland filed to open insolvency proceedings with the district court in Augsburg, Germany, court spokesman Alfred Schwarz said. Werner Schneider was appointed as insolvency administrator, said the Offenbach-based company, which employs 6,500 workers worldwide, mainly in Germany.

The European Central Bank and Germany firmly rejected calls from euro-zone politicians to bail out Italy and other struggling euro members by intervening massively in bond markets, insisting that the central bank's credibility rests on its political independence and focus on fighting inflation, the Wall Street Journal reported Saturday.

The row between France and Germany over whether to use the European Central Bank to rescue the eurozone has intensified, further shattering international confidence that a solution can be found to the escalating debt crisis, The Guardian reported. On a day when the US president, Barack Obama, accused the eurozone of suffering from a "problem of political will", Paris and Berlin clashed over whether the ECB should be called on to do more to bail out countries that are struggling to borrow.

German and French officials have discussed plans for a radical overhaul of the European Union that would involve setting up a more integrated and potentially smaller euro zone, EU sources say. "France and Germany have had intense consultations on this issue over the last months, at all levels," a senior EU official in Brussels told Reuters, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the discussions.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel could face another showdown with euro rebels in her coalition when parliament votes Wednesday on plans to boost the firepower of the euro-zone bailout fund, potentially weakening the chancellor in already difficult negotiations with European Union leaders at a summit planned for Wednesday evening, The Wall Street Journal reported. As European officials rushed to thrash out the details of a comprehensive response to the euro zone debt crisis by Wednesday, opponents of any further euro-zone bailouts within Ms.

Decisions taken over the coming week will define Europe's destiny for generation, The Wall Street Journal Agenda blog reported. For the past 60 years, the European Union in its various guises has helped to ensure peace and prosperity.

Disagreement between France and Germany may prevent eurozone leaders from reaching a crucial deal on a second rescue package for Greece this weekend, a person familiar with the negotiations said Tuesday, The Washington Post reported on an Associated Press story. A common position of the two biggest eurozone economies is seen as a precondition for reaching agreement between all 17 countries in the currency union at a crisis summit on Sunday.