Leaders ok EU-wide stimulus plan, agreement on climate change

After securing an agreement in the morning for Ireland to submit a stalled EU reform treaty to a second referendum next year, the 27 leaders were hoping to reach more common ground on the global economic and environmental crises.

 

Copies of a draft agreement obtained by AFP showed the leaders should commit themselves at the summits conclusion to warding off the threat of a "recessionary spiral" with a stimulus package worth 200 billion euros ($264 billion) and a trimmed version of an ambitious climate package.

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"In these exceptional circumstances, Europe will act in a united, strong, rapid and decisive manner to avoid a recessionary spiral and sustain economic activity and employment," the draft conclusion said.

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"It will mobilize all the instruments available to it and act in a concerted manner to maximize the effect of the measures taken by the Union and by each member state."

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Under the stimulus plan, member countries would pump on average the equivalent of 1.5 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) into their economies in order to temper the impact of a global recession.

 

 

CONCESSIONS ON CLIMATE

European Union leaders agreed at a summit on Friday to a deal on tackling climate change, an EU official said.

"There is an agreement on climate change," the official told Reuters.

Nine Eastern European countries were seen as the final main blockage to agreeing a package of measures aimed at fighing global warming but which will ramp up costs for their highly polluting coal-fired power sectors.