Eu, Europe Debt Crisis | featured news

Thousands of workers protested in Brussels on Thursday to demand that EU leaders gathering for a summit bring an end to austerity measures and instead focus on boosting growth and reducing unemployment.

In spite of years of harsh spending cuts and tax increases, Europe's debt problems are getting worse. Figures from the EU's statistics office Wednesday showed that, at the end of the second quarter, the total government debt of the 17 countries that use the single currency was worth 90 percent of the group's total economic output for the year - the highest level since the euro was launched in 1999.

The European Union has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to promote peace and democracy in Europe, in the midst of the union's biggest crisis since its creation in the 1950s.

European Union officials pushed on Saturday to accelerate moves to stem the bloc's long debt crisis as Italian premier Mario Monti warned that economic suffering was fuelling divisive nationalism on the continent.

Spain's government said Friday it plans to make its official request for EU aid for its banking sector Monday, as discussions continue on ways to inject European aid funds directly into ailing Spanish banks.

Spain's high borrowing costs mean it is effectively shut out of the bond market and the European Union should help Madrid recapitalize its debt-laden banks, Treasury minister Cristobal Montoro said on Tuesday.

Some two decades ago, when Europe’s leaders worked out the details of their grand vision to connect the European Union with a single currency, virtually every economist on this side of the Atlantic — and most of those on the other — figured out that the euro would be fatally flawed.

The European Union has no plans to activate its emergency funds to recapitalize Spanish bank and Spain had no need to appeal for funds to do so, the European Commission said on Thursday.

European Union members that use the euro agreed to sign a treaty that would require stricter financial and fiscal discipline, but two countries with their own currencies, Britain and Hungary, refused.

European Union leaders made some progress toward a strategy to fight the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis on Sunday, nearing agreement on bank recapitalization and on how to leverage their rescue fund to try to stop bond market contagion.