Acrimony, Frail Plan as Euro Talks Adjourn

With the Greek economy in shambles and Italy's teetering, European leaders emerged today from talks on saving the Euro—with little to show for it, the New York Times reports. Their big announcement—a mandate for banks to bolster their reserves—inspired a sigh from analysts, who say the proposed $139 billion reserves aren't enough to create confidence in the banks' creditworthiness and reinstate their access to world money markets.

“We’re going to need potentially much more capital to provide that comfort," says one London analyst. Also at issue was how much debt Greece should actually pay off. Banks balked at a devaluation of 60%, which Greece might be able to afford, and adopted a hard line of 21%—leaving many policy-makers frustrated. Says one banking rep: “Any approach that is not based on cooperative discussions and involves unilateral actions would be tantamount to default." (More Nicolas Sarkozy stories.)