The world piles pressure on a weary eurozone

Euro area countries fell under a hail of pressure and criticism at the G20 summit in Mexico for dawdling toward solutions as their crisis pulls down the global economy.

But in the beachside resort of Los Cabos, there was little sign of a change in the plodding pace that has characterized European leaders' confrontation with their sprawling debt and deficit-fed challenges.

Having hoped that Greece's elections Sunday would buy them some time for more negotiations and structural reform talks, eurozone leaders felt the blast of impatience from their colleagues as well as from international bond markets.

At the meeting of the Group of 20 powers, the United States, Britain, the BRICS emerging powers and even the IMF cajoled and pressed for action on more growth-friendly policies and a move toward a banking union.

The sometimes explicit criticisms suggested that Germany, France and other key euro members were not moving fast enough to prevent their crisis from infecting the rest of the world.

Leaders of the newly assertive emerging economies -- the BRICS, or Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- "regretted the absence of concrete measures" by the eurozone, Russian officials said.

As the group agreed to chip in tens of billions of dollars to the IMF's firewall stockpile for crisis intervention, they also insisted the money should not be "earmarked for any special region" -- that is, the eurozone -- as China's Vice Finance Minister Zhu Guangyao spelled out.

More sharply, British Prime Minister David Cameron took issue with German Chancellor Angela Merkel's reticence to spill more liquidity into the market.

"We cannot afford for central banks around the world to stand on the sidelines," he said.

"The eurozone has two choices. Either they try to force down wages and prices in the periphery as fast as they can to restore competitiveness... or the core of the eurozone has to do more to support the periphery through greater fiscal burden sharing."

EU officials bristled at such criticism.

"Frankly, we are not coming here to receive lessons in terms of democracy or in terms of how to handle the economy," said European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso.

"By the way, this crisis was not originated in Europe," he added, pointing to the financial meltdown of 2008, which began in the United States.

In summit after summit the Europeans have been in the hot seat, and each time they have reiterated a determination to get on top of a crisis that has humbled four eurozone countries into huge rescues and left others on edge.

It was much the same in Los Cabos.

"Reforms take time," pleaded EU president Herman Van Rompuy. "We are correcting internal imbalances and a lot of other countries have to correct their huge external imbalances, but we understand that correcting the external imbalances that takes also time."

But, based on a draft of the G20 final communique obtained by AFP, there was some movement.

Faced with the return of market tensions, euro area members of the G20 vowed to "take all necessary measures" to protect and stabilize the bloc and agreed to a G20 pledge that "strong, sustainable and balanced growth" remains the top priority.

And they said they would move on the creation of a banking union, with region-wide deposit insurance, which is seen as crucial to halt the "feedback loop" of weak banks turning into even more sovereign debt for governments, as in Spain 10 days ago.

US Treasury Under Secretary Lael Brainard said there has been a clear change among Europeans over how to get out of recession.

"We're seeing a noticeable shift in the European discussion regarding the critical importance of supporting demand and job growth," she told reporters.

"Importantly there's a recognition of the need to assess fiscal consolidation plans on a structural basis, in short recognizing the deterioration in economic conditions."

Even so, the most cautious and powerful figure in the eurozone, Germany's Merkel, did not change pace publicly.

"Discussion here has been balanced: we need the right mix of consolidation and growth stimulus at the same time," she told reporters.

The tension was evident in a small but illustrative spat. Tax-cutting Cameron cheekily advertised his open door to France's wealthy if French President Francois Hollande followed through on promises to raise taxes for the rich.

There was no humor in Hollande's retort: "Everyone should take responsibility for what he says. I do. At a time when European solidarity should be strong, I will do nothing to breach it."

But Italian Prime Minister summed up the air at Los Cabos with a ironic, but perhaps truthful, aside:

"This long discussion has been a progress in the sense that it enables us individually, very much like a GPS that is reset periodically, to see how we and our problems are perceived in the rest of Europe and in the world at large."

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