Eurozone crisis - Failure is not an option for summit

THURSDAY’S emergency summit of eurozone leaders needs to be decisive and effective.

It may be a tad early to describe the high-stakes meeting as a last throw of the dice to save the euro as it is, but the summit is certainly not premature. For too long national governments and European bodies, especially the European Central Bank, have prevaricated, reacting too slowly to the evolving crisis and allowing markets and their very specific self-interests to dominate events.

Last week’s downgrading by ratings agency Moody’s of Ireland’s debt to junk status was just the last in a long line of unhelpful events that might have been prevented by more decisive action at national and EU level.