Eurozone emergency meeting yields no sign of resolution

France’s president Nicolas Sarkozy flew to Frankfurt on Wednesday night for an emergency meeting on the eurozone crisis at Jean-Claude Trichet’s farewell party, while his wife Carla Bruni was giving birth to their first child. Bloomberg reports that with just four days before the summits that are supposed to announce a solution, there was Franco-German tensions appear to be persisting. The FT reports other attendees at the meeting, held in the wings of the festivities at the Alte Oper in Frankfurt, were German chancellor Angela Merkel, along with Mario Draghi, Mr Trichet’s successor, and Christine Lagarde, head of the IMF. Herman Van Rompuy, president of the EC, and José Manuel Barroso, president of the EC, were also involved, as were François Baroin and Wolfgang Schäuble, the French and German finance ministers. The meeting broke up after two hours with neither the German or French leaders making any comment. German officials on Wednesday reaffirmed the country’s opposition to the ECB providing the European rescue fund with a line of credit. Ms Merkel, who has little room to manoeuvre on the EFSF in Berlin, will address Bundestag with Mr Schauble on Friday morning. Earlier, the FT reported that EU bank recapitalisation plans may fall well short of expectations, with a level of €80bn being discussed. The finance ministry denied a report in FT Deutschland that Mr Schauble had talked of the EFSF firepower being increased to €1,000bn, says Bloomberg.