By Delusional Economics, who is horrified at the state of economic commentary in Australia and is determined to cleanse the daily flow of vested interests propaganda to produce a balanced counterpoint. Cross posted from MacroBusiness .

The EU summit ended late last week with a better than expected outcome, but as usual the devil is in the details. The summit statement (available below) was as loosely worded as these things come and many decisions are still left to interpretation and future actions.

Going into the summit my major concern wasn’t so much economic, but political, because the chicken and egg issue of debt sharing and national sovereignty appeared a bridge too far. I therefore think that the major success from Friday’s summit was that it showed that when push comes to shove the Eurocrats will move in order to break an existential debt-lock. That in itself is a big step forward and the banking union, although again very vague at this moment, appears to be a move towards debt-sharing.

Most of the southern European news agencies appear to have taken the line that this was a huge win by their leaders and a massive capitulation from Germany. The truth, however, maybe a little less clear. Spain and Italy did play hard ball on the “Growth pact” forcing Angela Merkel to agree to concession on direct bank re-capitalisation and the use of the ESM as she required it to get the ESM/fiscal pact vote through her own parliament. Markets have rightly welcomed the news and celebrated the disconnection of banks from sovereigns but this by no means removes conditionality.

The EU summit statement itself makes this clear:

We affirm our strong commitment to do what is necessary to ensure the financial stability of the euro area, in particular by using the existing EFSF/ESM instruments in

Read more http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/NakedCapitalism/~3/DyQrB_0o21U/europes-small-step-on-a-long-road.html