Tighter eurozone fiscal plans canvassed

France and Germany are urgently preparing contingency plans to jump-start tighter eurozone economic governance, the FT reports, amid a growing realisation in Berlin that a deal endorsed by all 27 member states may take too long. This would help French officials pressing for a rapid intergovernmental pact between willing eurozone countries and implemented through new institutions. A successful Franco-German push towards a fiscal union would make it easier for the ECB to step up its intervention in eurozone bond markets in order to preserve financial stability, the newspaper says, citing people familiar with its thinking. The WSJ says a potentially groundbreaking new pact would make budget discipline legally binding and enforceable by European authorities.