European Leaders

President Obama pushed European officials today to take quick action to end their debt crisis, highlighting the growing concerns about the impact their troubles could have on the U.S. economy. But while Obama announced that U.S. is “ready to do our part” to help Europe resolve its problems, the leaders didn't detail new plans as they emerged from a series of meetings at the White House. Much of the annual summit between the U.S. and the European Union focused on the euro-zone crisis, Obama told reporters after his meeting with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

WASHINGTON — For months, President Obama has been urging his European allies to balance their zeal for spending cuts with policies to spur economic growth. His pleas have mostly been ignored. But now, as Obama prepares to host the Group of 8 industrialized nations' summit Friday and Saturday, his pro-growth argument has taken on new force — and some measure of desperation. The G-8 gathering at Camp David will cover an array of topics, but given the escalating crisis in Greece, the future of the Eurozone is expected to dominate the talks, raising the stakes for the summit and for Obama.

Leaders of the 12 governments of the European Community agreed Friday, over British objections, to a conference next year that will prepare the ground for a single European currency. The leaders also agreed, again over British objections, to adopt a non-binding "social charter" that spells out workers' rights in the 12 countries. Britain's Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who has long opposed a common currency and a common policy on labor, signed neither of the agreements.

Political upheaval in Europe reached a new apex over the weekend when French voters threw out their incumbent president and Greeks gave the heave-ho to the ruling parliamentary coalition. The results suggest that a new consensus is emerging in Europe in favor of more economic stimulus, but they also call into question the continent's ability to agree on a plan to keep its fiscal problems from spreading uncontrollably. European leaders had agreed to a series of pacts that would rescue Greece and other defaulting countries in exchange for steep reductions in their red ink, while also requiring every country that relies on the euro to shrink their debts and curb deficit spending.

President Bush will meet separately next month with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and French President Francois Mitterrand to discuss the dramatic changes in Eastern Europe. Bush also will confer with Polish Prime Minister Tadeusz Mazowiecki next Wednesday at the White House. Bush will meet with Thatcher in Bermuda on April 13 and with Mitterrand in Florida on April 19.

Three European powers called for a new international conference on Afghanistan, hoping to accelerate and improve training of its security forces and lay out a timetable for Afghans to take back full control of their country. Britain's Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy of France, and Germany's Angela Merkel sent a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calling for the meeting by the end of the year. The escalation of war and rising allied casualties have sparked criticism in North Atlantic Treaty Organization nations about the continued military commitment nearly eight years after a multinational coalition toppled the Taliban government and sent its Al Qaeda allies into hiding.

The leaders of France, Britain and Germany jointly urged their defense industries Tuesday to adopt by March 31 a "clear plan" to create giant, Pan-European companies that could compete with U.S. rivals.

European leaders stood shoulder to shoulder with Washington on Wednesday in deeming NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia fitting punishment for aggression, but nervous neighbors in the Balkans and beyond feared that the attacks might provoke a wider conflict. "The fire in Kosovo could engulf the whole Balkans," Turkish Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit warned, echoing worries rife in the historically troubled region.

The leaders of Europe's three major powers failed Saturday to agree on a unified plan for postwar Iraq, but they called for a prominent United Nations role in rebuilding the country and a return of sovereignty to the Iraqi people. The two-hour summit between German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, French President Jacques Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair underscored Europe's political differences as it seeks consensus on Iraq.

This week, President Obama found out how much harder it is to sell economic stimulus packages in Europe than it is in Washington. Obama went to the Group of 20 summit in London hoping to persuade leaders of the world's biggest economies to boost government spending to counteract the global downturn. Backed by Japan and Britain, the administration argued that restoring growth around the world required a stronger fiscal push from other developed nations.

Renewed fears of a European recession are threatening to derail the stock market's 2012 rally. Stock indexes around the world experienced their sharpest drops of the year Tuesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average logging its first triple-digit loss since December. Over the last five months the blue-chip index has risen more than 20% to its highest point since before the financial crisis, driven by good economic data in the U.S. and growing hope that European leaders had contained the debt crisis there.

Wall Street logged its worst week so far this year as investors worried that negotiations over a Greek bailout have unraveled, sending major U.S. stock indexes lower. Investors had mostly shrugged off worries about Europe's efforts to contain its debt crisis, with the Dow Jones industrial average up 4.6% since January. However, the blue-chip index shed nearly half a percentage point this last week after European leaders turned down the latest plan to bail out Greece. That pushed the Dow to its worst one-day drop in 2012 as it fell 89.23 points, or 0.7%, to 12,801.23 on Friday.

Stocks rose sharply on the first trading day of 2012 as upbeat U.S. economic data overshadowed continuing concerns about the European debt crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average was up  240.45  points, or 2%, to 12,458.01   in early trading Tuesday. The Standard & Poor's 500 index was up 2%. The market opened higher after the Institute for Supply Management reported Tuesday that its monthly index of manufacturing activity rose in December, marking its third straight increase and providing more evidence that the U.S. economy is in recovery mode.

In the white-knuckle game of chicken that the euro crisis has increasingly become, three players are staring one another down: the markets, the masses and Merkel. As time runs out to save the shared currency and avert global economic pandemonium, the question of who will blink first is likely to become clear over the next few days while European leaders prepare for a crucial summit. All three players are refusing to budge, making it difficult to tell who will yield or whether their intransigence will result in mutually assured destruction.

President Obama pushed European officials today to take quick action to end their debt crisis, highlighting the growing concerns about the impact their troubles could have on the U.S. economy. But while Obama announced that U.S. is “ready to do our part” to help Europe resolve its problems, the leaders didn't detail new plans as they emerged from a series of meetings at the White House. Much of the annual summit between the U.S. and the European Union focused on the euro-zone crisis, Obama told reporters after his meeting with European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.

Lucas Papademos, a banker and visiting professor at Harvard University, on Thursday landed one of the world's least popular jobs: prime minister of Greece. After days of haggling, Greece's two main political parties named Papademos, a trained economist and former governor of the Greek central bank, as the financially strapped country's new prime minister for at least the next few months. In his first public statement, the soft-speaking 64-year-old tried to allay public concerns and instill some semblance of hope.

The Bush Administration, reacting to concerns that the two Germanys are moving too independently toward quick reunification, announced Tuesday that East and West Germany will hold their first formal meeting on reunification next week with the United States, Britain, France and the Soviet Union. The date and site of the sub-cabinet-level talks have not yet been announced.

Searching for a solution to what has become the most extensive European conflict since World War II, European leaders were offered two proposals Wednesday aimed at restoring peace to Yugoslavia, but the sudden diplomatic flurry produced little visible progress. Germany presented the European Parliament with a six-point plan that would engage Russia and the United Nations, both of which have been sidelined so far in efforts to resolve the Kosovo crisis.

REPORTING FROM ROME -- After losing support among a majority of lawmakers on a crucial vote Tuesday, Silvio Berlusconi agreed to step down as Italy's prime minister when Parliament passes economic reforms demanded by European leaders who are trying to contain the region's debt crisis. The announcement came in a statement from Italian President Giorgio Napolitano, who met with Berlusconi following the budget vote in the Parliament's lower chamber earlier in the day. The measure passed the lower house with 308 votes, but 321 lawmakers abstained.

The prospects of an emerging China stepping up to the role of global leader by becoming a major supporter of a planned $1.4-trillion European bailout fund has unsettled many in the Asian country. They don't think China should seal its status as a superpower by shifting its foreign trove of U.S. Treasury bonds and debts of other nations to fund the financial recovery of Greece and some of its troubled Eurozone neighbors, analysts say. The Chinese have shied from flexing their considerable financial muscle to help Greece, where the ruling Socialists and opposition conservatives agreed Sunday to form a unity government — a step seen by many European leaders as necessary for the country to move forward with a massive bailout plan.