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EU agrees bailout package for euro

European finance ministers have agreed a €750 billion (£650 billion) EU and International Monetary Fund bailout fund to help shore up troubled eurozone economies teetering in the European Union's growing financial crisis.

After 11-hour marathon talks, ministers settled on the package they hoped would be big enough to prevent Greece's debt crisis from spreading.

Under the three-year aid plan, the EU Commission will make €60 billion (£52 billion) available while countries from the 16-nation eurozone would promise bilateral backing for €440 billion (£381 billion). The IMF would contribute an additional sum of at least half of the EU's total contribution, or €250 billion (£216 billion), Spanish Finance Minister Elena Salgado said.

“We are placing considerable sums in the interest of stability in Europe," said Ms Salgado after the talks, which were called on Friday night amid concerns that the financial crisis sparked by Greece's runaway debt problems had begun to spread to other fragile economies such as Portugal and Spain.

The deal, announced as Asian stock markets opened, comes as Europe attempts a difficult balancing act in rescuing debt laden nations. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already been punished by the German people for agreeing aid to Greece; her Christian Democratic Party recorded its worst ever result in crucial regional elections over the weekend.

Shortly after the deal was announced the euro, which last week sank to a 14-month low against the dollar, rose nearly two percent in early trade in Asia and U.S. stock futures jumped two percent.

The EU's monetary affairs commissioner, Olli Rehn, said the agreement "proves that we shall defend the euro whatever it takes."

He described the arrangement as "a consolidation pact" that would be "particularly crucial for countries under speculative attacks in recent weeks".

The European ministers said in a statement: "We are facing such exceptional circumstances today and the mechanism will stay in place as long as needed to safeguard financial stability."

Spain and Portugal, which have begun to see the same signs of trouble that Greece had three months ago, have committed to "take significant additional consolidation measures in 2010 and 2011," the statement said, and the two countries will present them to the EU's finance ministers at their meeting on May 18.

The EU's slow response to the crisis and its failure to keep Greece from reaching the brink of bankruptcy triggered slides in the euro and global stocks last week, and intensified fears the crisis would spread.

Officials said they would fight speculative investors they blame for aggravating the public debt crisis.

"We now see ... wolfpack behaviors, and if we will not stop these packs, even if it is self-inflicted weakness, they will tear the weaker countries apart," Swedish Finance Minister Anders Borg told reporters in Brussels before the EU meeting.

Some eurozone nations however blamed the behaviour of ndividual governments and a lack of European cooperation for the crisis.

"I'm against putting all the blame on speculation,"said Austrian Finance Minister Josef Proell. "Speculation is only successful against countries that have mismanaged their finances for years."

Early on Saturday, the eurozone leaders gave final approval for an €80 billion rescue package of loans to Greece for the next three years to keep it from imploding. The International Monetary Fund also approved its part of the rescue package — €30 billion worth of loans — in Washington on Sunday.