European leaders won over by Brown's triple-whammy bank rescue strategy

French president Nicolas Sarkozy issues a statement on the financial crisis at the Elysee Palace in Paris. Photograph: Gerard Cerles/AFP The governments of Europe today embarked on their biggest financial gamble since the launch of the euro single currency by pledging to buy tottering banks, underwrite their lending and flood the markets with liquidity in a package that could cost up to €2trillion (£1.5trillion) across the EU. In a closely coordinated rash of announcements, Germany, France, Austria and Spain unveiled packages worth hundreds of billions of euros aimed at shoring up their banks and financial systems, while Italy, Sweden, Poland and Norway prepared parallel action. The radical and risky moves followed an emergency summit of the 15 single currency countries in Paris on Sunday night which agreed a set of rules and... [read full story]