BBC News
July 22, 2011
How did they do? Slightly better than expected. Will it be enough? Of course not.
With so many "known unknowns" haunting the markets in these flighty months of summer, Europe's leaders just have to pray that it is enough, for now.
As I discussed on the Today programme this morning, the biggest positives are that Greece, Portugal and Ireland will get a significant cut in the cost of servicing their debts, and the powers of the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) have been extended.
As I suggested yesterday, the leaders also appear to have reached an accommodation with the European Central Bank, though they have been suspiciously vague about what that agreement is.
The decision to stop charging a hefty premium on their emergency loans is overdue. These were neither good economics nor good politics. But they were another reflection of Germany's long night of the soul on the question of bailouts. There had to be a big premium to "punish" Greece when the first bailout happened, or there wouldn't have been a bailout at all.
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