EU countries will help European banks in overcoming the financial crisis. This statement was made by French President Nicolas Sarkozy following a meeting of the heads of EU countries in Paris, AFP reports on Sunday.

“We have come to a joint decision to provide assistance to financial structures suffering from the economic crisis,” the agency quotes Sarkozy as saying. Sarkozy also called for a G8 summit to be convened “as soon as possible” in order to develop a unified strategy to confront the crisis.

In addition, according to Sarkozy, the leaders of the EU countries who attended the meeting managed to develop a certain doctrine (the so-called “Plan for Stability and Growth”), according to which assistance to banks will be provided. However, the French President clarified that the governments of EU countries will themselves determine the type and amount of assistance provided to banks, noting that such actions will be coordinated.

At the same time, as expected, Sarkozy did not propose to his colleagues to allocate 300 billion euros to rescue European banks, since Germany and a number of other EU states had previously stated that under no circumstances would they support such an initiative. In addition, let us recall that information about the possible introduction of such a plan, similar to the 700 billion “Paulson plan” recently adopted in the United States, had already been previously denied by French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde.

Meanwhile, during the meeting it became known that the plan developed by the German government to save the second largest mortgage agency in Germany, Hypo Real Estate, would not be implemented due to the fact that the banking consortium involved in the operation refused to provide the necessary amount.

EU leaders promised to help banks overcome the crisis