Eurozone 15 prepare battle plans

French and current EU president Nicolas Sarkozy brings together the 15 members of the eurozone for an emergency summit today.

Eight days ago in a mini-summit of Europe’s four G7 members unity was lacking. Not so at this meeting of continental Europe’s big two, France and Germany, who said they would be acting in perfect concord to tackle this crisis.

And it seems it may be Britain’s embattled prime minister Gordon Brown who’s riding to the rescue. The former finance minister’s stock is rising as the crisis deepens, and it seems likely Europe will adopt the British rescue plan, which he is outlining to the eurogroup today.

On Monday the British government will begin taking shares in the biggest four retail banks, and guarantee interbank loans, injecting capital and attempting to restore confidence. The result will be the UK government becomes the majority shareholder in the RBS and HBOS, and a big shareholder in Lloyds TSB and Barclays.

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