Merkel: Eurozone step-by-step

Merkel used her address to lawmakers in the Bundestag on Wednesday to outline her four-step policy on how to surmount the crisis.

"There are no fast, and there are no simple solutions," she told German parliamentarians, adding that the only way out was a process of taking one step after another and tackling the problem from the "roots."

"Anything else is doomed to failure, or is at best a sham," she said.

Controls, discipline should have priority

Merkel's policy speech came the day before a summit in Brussels, where EU leaders will once more try to resolve the debt crisis that began in Greece in 2010 and has so far prompted Portugal, Ireland, Spain and Cyprus to request bailouts.

The meeting will also consider a "growth pact" worth 130 billion euros ($163 billion) and meant to stimulate job creation alongside budgetary savings.

Merkel again stressed her opposition to issuing eurobonds, which some policymakers back as a way to pool eurozone debt. The chancellor called them "economically wrong" and "counterproductive."

"It is imperative that we don't promise things that we cannot deliver and that we implement what we have agreed," Merkel said to applause in the chamber. "Joint liability can only happen when sufficient controls are in place," she added.

ncy/ipj (Reuters, dpa, AFP)