In reacting to the European Council meeting, Guy Verhofstadt, President of the ALDE group said:

"I welcome the decisions taken at the European Council today to tackle the crisis. In particular the ability for member states in difficulty to access the EFSF/ESM and for direct capital injection into banks. I especially welcome the Council's change of mind on the need for a single European banking supervisor which the European Parliament had proposed already two years ago."

"But despite the importance of the measures taken today, have European leaders really grasped the need for more fundamental change ?"

"The measures adopted buy time but now they must be put to good use unlike at the beginning of the year when ECB long-term refinancing operations temporarily calmed the markets but the EU failed to exploit that hiatus to put in place the necessary structural changes."

"However, what is urgently needed is not so much the fleshing out of these building blocks but specific legislative proposals from the Commission as soon as possible on all of the four elements - economic, banking, fiscal and political union."

"The sooner the Council and the Parliament can get down to examining these concrete legislative proposals, the sooner we will get out of this crisis. We have no more time to waste."