Europe not in agreement over Greek writedowns

European leaders delayed a debt-crisis summit even with opposition to Germany's push for a deeper-than-planned Greek bond writedown ran high. According to Luxembourg prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker the write downs might exceed 60 per cent of the country's debt.

Commenting on Austrian television late yesterday over  speculation that investors stood to  lose between 50 per cent and 60 per cent of the value of their holdings, Juncker said they were talking about even more. He did not comment  further, however.

The 18 October meeting was postponed to 23 October as Europe struggled to put a master plan in place for dealing with Greece's huge debt, ringfencing Spanish and Italian markets, and shielding banks from the fallout.

According to Belgian prime minister Yves Leterme, Europe needed a strategy to shore up banks before effecting the provisions of a July accord to cut Greek bond values by an average of 21 per cent.

He told Bloomberg in a television interview at his Brussels residence yesterday that it was a very sensitive issue. He added that one could not change the percentages at every European Council and bring supplementary problems to banks.

Meanwhile, officials from the EU, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are expected to conclude the assessment of Greek finances as early as Tuesday. However, their eagerly awaited report may have to wait publication until the middle of next week, according to insiders, a report in The Telegraph said.