European leaders have wrapped up their final summit of a tumultuous 2010, pledging to defend debt-plagued euro nations to the hilt, but amid stark warnings the sickness is far from cured.
European Union President Herman Van Rompuy says plans for the 27 states to rewrite their treaty and set up a permanent emergency rescue fund from mid-2013 will make the world's biggest tariff-free trading bloc "more crisis-proof".
The successor to a temporary, IMF-backed $US1 trillion ($A1.01 trillion) facility - created after the crisis was unleashed in Greece - will anchor "a comprehensive response to any challenges, as part of the eurozone's new economic governance".
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Friday the summit "clearly stated that the euro cannot be dissociated from Europe" and vowed that the size of the future bailout fund, poised to introduce penalties for private-sector holders of government debt, would be "convincing".
Alongside Greece, Ireland has also had to call in emergency loans from partners, with Portugal, Spain, Belgium and even Italy likewise considered at risk by experts going into 2011.
Merkel maintained that the more "coherent" cross-border economic policy becomes, citing comparisons of national budgets and even social welfare systems, "the less the fund's size will matter".
British Prime Minister David Cameron, more interested in crimping the bloc's budget for the next decade, wanted to ensure that non-euro London - which volunteered loans for Ireland - would not be required to participate in future rescues.
"What Britain has secured in black and white is a clear and unanimous agreement that from 2013 Britain will not be dragged into bailing out the eurozone," Cameron said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy, though, echoed Merkel's drive for cross-border economic governance to "go further", urging leaders to focus on competitive discrepancies between partners and saying the entire eurozone needed "convergenceprograms, similar to the one we have instigated between France and Germany".
Luxembourg's Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the Eurogroup of finance ministers, expressed his belief that "we will not be able to escape debate on tax regimes... which must be given more harmony so that there is no tax competition" between nations.
That was interpreted as a reference to Ireland's low corporation tax, which some wanted raised as a condition of its bailout.
Despite the vow by the EU collectively to do "whatever is required", analysts complained at a lack of detail.
Carsten Brzeski of ING accused EU leaders of indulging in "window-dressing", with Frank Engels of Barclays Capital decrying "yet another missed opportunity".
Jonathan Loynes of Capital Economics said the EU was "typically vague," doing "little to address uncertainties over the burden likely to be shouldered by private sector bondholders."
These investors fear they will have to take 'haircuts' if a country needs to restructure debt, which was not the case with either Greece or Ireland.
Loynes also noted: "The core economies' resistance to a further increase in the size of the bailout fund, or the introduction of common bonds, appears to be hardening."
So-called E-bonds would be a joint eurozone bond backed by all its members, both weak and strong.
Critics led by powerhouse economy Germany, though, fear their borrowing costs would only rise.
Although the debate was left for another day, revitalised Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi said he, for one, "will buy them, because they offer a guarantee of stability".
The euro rose while European stocks fell on Friday as positive German data and Thursday's EU statements of intent helped to offset a huge ratings downgrade for Ireland and more Spanish debt problems.
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