Sarkozy comes to Berlin to shore up Europe's banks

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the leaders of the eurozone's most powerful economies, are meeting in the German capital on Sunday to thrash out differences over how to use Europe's newly approved financial tools to fix the bloc's broken financial system.

With the turmoil of the ongoing debt crisis threatening to spiral into eurozone-wide financial meltdown, Merkel and Sarkozy will be focusing on how to deal with Greece, how to prevent contagion from spreading to the rest of Europe, and how to recapitalize overexposed banks that have taken a recent beating on financial markets.

A report in German weekly Welt am Sonntag said a compromise was being worked out between the French and German positions: in exchange for Berlin's demand for a bigger cut in Greek debt, France would obtain agreement that the EFSF could be refinanced by the European Central Bank.

For more: Sarkozy comes to Berlin to shore up Europe's banks | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 09.10.2011