Unity, but no consensus over euro governance

The statement on Greece

The EU leaders gave a two-pronged message. The first was that Greece must implement any reforms that the European Commission and the European Central Bank (ECB) deem necessary for the country to reduce its budget deficit. The second was that, if it does so but still finds itself in economic jeopardy, then financial support from the eurozone will be forthcoming.
The leaders said that they “fully support the efforts of the Greek government and their commitment to do whatever is necessary, including adopting additional measures”, to ensure that the country's “ambitious” deficit-reduction targets are met. These targets, made binding on Greece at a finance ministers' meeting on Tuesday (16 February), include a deficit reduction of four percentage points in 2010, and a deficit level below 3% of gross domestic product by 2012.
Governments said that the Commission and the ECB would “closely monitor” the implementation of reforms, with a first assessment to be carried out in March. They said this assessment would draw on the “expertise” of the International Monetary Fund.
Crucially, leaders then said that “euro area member states will take determined and co-ordinated action, if needed, to safeguard financial stability in the euro area as a whole”, thus confirming, for the first time, that eurozone governments would step in to save Greece should the need arise.

More summits?

Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, announced at the close of the summit that he would like the leaders of the EU's national governments to meet as often as once a month.
Speaking at the end of his first summit as Council president, he said that the idea of meeting monthly was “not a formal proposal as yet”, but that “a number” of member states had requested that the European Council should meet more often.
He said that more frequent meetings were needed for the Council to work seriously on co-ordinating economic policy and on other topics. “There's only one possibility, really, and that is that we have to meet more frequently,” he said.
Van Rompuy also announced that he would try to organise an annual summit so that national leaders could look together at how well member states are complying with the EU's stability and growth pact (which obliges governments to keep their budget deficits within 3% of gross domestic product), the EU's climate change targets and the targets contained in the future Europe 2020 strategy for economic growth.