Europe struggles for unity in face of recession

Despite promises to tackle recession together, EU governments are scrambling each in their own corner to come up with new measures to revive their economies, threatening the bloc’s unity.

Since the start of the year, Germany has launched a new economic recovery plan, Britain unveiled a fresh rescue package for its banking sector and a number of countries are putting together plans to help their carmakers.

The hodge-podge of various measures contrasts with the spirit of unity that led EU leaders as recently as December to agree on a 200-billion-euro stimulus plan to snap the European economy out of recession.

Although most of the package is made up of national measures, leaders made much of the fact that Europe’s efforts to beat recession would be closely coordinated in order to reduce waste and avoid distortions to markets.