Informele EU-top onder druk door onderliggende spanningen van EU lidstaten (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - EU member states will in Brussels on Sunday (1 March) gather for a high stakes summit that will test the bloc's ability to pull together in the face of the economic crisis.
Pre-summit signs have not been encouraging. With unemployment rising, production going down and the financial turmoil intensifying, governments have reached for national solutions.
The results have threatened the functioning of the internal market, the cornerstone on which the European Union is built.
The European Commission is currently examining government aid for the car industry in six countries - Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden and the UK - to make sure it does not breach state aid rules.
EU competition law and the treaty underpinning the euro, the Stability and Growth Pact, are also under threat.
The economic situation has caused tension between member states, notably EU presidency country, the Czech Republic, and France, which had a noisy exchange on the perils of protectionism.
Relations between Prague and Paris have taken such a dive, some diplomats say the main reason Sunday's impromptu summit - ostensibly to combat protectionism - was called to stop French president Nicolas Sarkozy i calling a summit exclusively for eurozone countries.
Mr Sarkozy, who sparked talk of a downward spiral towards economic nationalism with his package to help the car industry, remains unrepentant ahead of Sunday's meeting.
"We were criticised everywhere, I was called protectionist but now others are imitating us," he said on Thursday.
Solidarity
The crisis has posed the question of what it means to be an EU member state and to what extent this implies extending solidarity to other members.
Austria, whose banking sector is exposed in the east to a sum worth around 70 percent of the country's GDP, has been crying out for a European response to bail out eastern banks.
Help arrived on Thursday in the form of loans from the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the European Investment Bank.
EU governments have also been looking to Germany - the bloc's paymaster - for a lead. Until recently, it rejected all hints of bailing out fellow eurozone members, indicating that governments should take responsibility for past profligacy.
But chancellor Angela Merkel i this week indicated Berlin is prepared to help troubled euro members, such as Ireland and Greece, which have seen their cost of borrowing jump up. The catch would be stringent economic conditions - beneficial to Germany - on any aid that it gives.
East and west
In addition, the 27 member states are at risk of splitting into east and western camps.
Poland has called a gathering of nine central and eastern European member states to meet before the main gathering on Sunday. The pre-summit event aims to present a united eastern front, amid fears richer western member states will try to buy their way out of the problem.
The group of nine is also alarmed by talk of the creation of eurobonds - bonds guaranteed by the whole 16 member eurozone - in the belief it will push up the costs of their own borrowing.
Feeling the cold winds of existence outside the eurozone, some are also trying to speed up the process of joining the single currency, but with little concrete response so far.
Diplomacy wanted
The Czech EU presidency has said the purpose of the summit is to feed into the EU leaders' regular Spring summit later in March and to simply get leaders round one table.
But with EU leaders sniping at each other - on protectionism, on how to save the car industry or even the need for this extraordinary summit - it will be difficult to get a coherent response on Sunday.
Much will depend on the skills of the Czech EU presidency to forge a peaceable atmosphere and the style of leadership displayed by Berlin and Paris.