THE GUARDIAN: German leaders issue stark warnings and insist on punitive new regime for euro countries if monetary union is to survive
Europe was threatened with its gravest modern crisis tonight as Germany warned that the EU's future was on the line in the Greek emergency.
The spiralling tension over Greece's ballooning debts and Europe's first ever bailout of a country in the single currency has exposed fundamental questions about the EU and Germany's pivotal role as the union's biggest power.
In Berlin, where Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a groundswell of hostility to sending the Greeks a €22bn lifeline next week, leaders issued stark warnings about the prospects for the EU and insisted on a punitive new regime for the 16 euro countries if the monetary union is to survive.
The leaders of the eurozone's 16 nations are to assemble for an emergency summit on the Greek crisis in Brussels on Friday evening, with the mood bleak and the stakes high.
"Europe is at a crossroads," Merkel declared to the German parliament in Berlin today. "This is about no more and no less than the future of Europe and about Germany's future in Europe."
Her sombre tone was echoed by the opposition leader and former foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who said the Greek crisis presented the EU with its biggest challenge since the union was created in the 1950s. >>> Ian Traynor in Brussels | Wednesday, May 05, 2010
