Sarkozy to help European economy

From: Becca Smith

French President Nicholas Sarkozy led 15 European countries to develop a plan to help relieve banks after the financial crisis in the United States. Sarkozy said the plan would helping guarantee lending between banks, refinance banks, and help ensure that problem banks will not fail. This plan will also give banks some additional flexibility as well as protecting individual depositors' accounts. This plan will be available until December 2009.

Sarkozy stated "What we want is to give back banks the means to lend, to support the economy to enable households to borrow for mortgages or consumption and give companies the means necessary to invest for growth. We cannot have a healthy economy and sustainable growth unless we have a solid financial sector." Sarkozy also said that he wanted to make sure that the plan was developed before the markets opened Monday morning.