After a marathon session running into the early morning hours England blocked Sarkozy-Merkel’s proposal for a new and revised EU-treaty giving the European Commission more decision power on the cost of member states. Premier Cameron made it clear the proposed revisions did not give England the necessary guarantees and especially not for its financial services industry.

Cameron stressed that England is not a part of the Euro-zone, and he sees the inflexibility of the EURO as mainly responsible for the financial crisis. He offers England’s support, but obviously see the EURO-crisis as primarily a problem for continental Europe.

An intergovernmental agreement between the 17 EURO-members seem in this situation to be the most likely outcome. To avoid the impression that ECB (European Central Bank) is acting as a lender of last resort, 200 Billion Euros is going to be transferred to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to create an extra firewall to bail out EURO-zone countries like Spain and Italy fighting with big budget deficits.

European leaders tried after the meeting to give this outcome towards a two-tier Europe a positive spin. Markets have reacted cautiously. The steep falls in futures seen through the night seem to have stopped for now. Euro/USD is flat at 1.3325 while YEN continues to be strengthened versus USD at 77,59.

Oil prices have fallen more than two dollars on the prospects of increased uncertainty and slower economic growth. Last quarter result for industrial output in China shows that the dramatic growth seen for many years have come to a halt. Gold prices which reached 1750 inter day yesterday, have been in free fall at present trading at 1708.