EU - US summit will skirt the real issues - by John Dizard

Journalists, commentators and financial analysts really like international conferences, not only for the free food and drink, but for their scripted nature and pre-set schedules, rather like royal weddings. It’s like the difference between war movies and wars; one experience is usually entertaining and resolved satisfactorily, the other is terrifying and never works out the way it should.

So it is with the euro-area summit set in Brussels for the end of this week. It will be like a war movie. The hero and heroine will survive the crisis, and it will be written so a predictable sequel can follow in good order. The financing made available from the seemingly richer countries will have stricter, notionally enforceable terms, and the “peripheral” countries’ politicians will make sincere, forgettable promises.

For the complete report: FT.com / FTfm / View from the US - EU summit will skirt the real issues