Gabriele Steinhauser
Associated Press
BRUSSELS — European leaders disagreed over how to fight the region's crippling debt crisis as they headed into a two-day summit in Brussels on Thursday and uncertainty spooked financial markets once again.
Amid the political deadlock, the crisis' effects rang out across the continent. Spain saw its borrowing costs jump in a bond sale a day after rating agency Moody's warned it might downgrade its debt. A bailout of Spain would dwarf those of Ireland and Greece and test the EU's financial limits.
Violent protests shook Athens on Wednesday and strikes continued throughout Greece.
Still, the two-day EU summit was not expected to result in any new shock-and-awe decisions to contain the smoldering debt crisis. Instead it will focus on a small change to EU treaties to set up a new crisis mechanism agreed almost two months ago.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel insisted that in itself was a milestone.
"It is a very big step of solidarity among the euro states," she said in a meeting of Christian Democrat leaders ahead of the summit.
She sought to play down days of rumors and reports about quarrels among the member states on how to fix the currency crisis that has become a major threat to EU plans of further integration.
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