BRUSSELS: Eurozone leaders on Tuesday pushed back talks on boosting a financial firewall they hope will end the eurozone debt crisis, owing to pressure from Germany.
"Germany is not ready," a eurozone governmental source told AFP, of the latest move in a global tug-of-war over emergency bailout funding.
"Chancellor Angela Merkel ultimately agrees that the funds, old and new, should be combined," the source said.
"But the timing isn't yet right."
At talks among the Group of 20 major world economies in Mexico at the weekend, finance ministers and central bankers there said the eurozone had to put in place a bigger firewall before non-euro or EU countries would help with loans to increase International Monetary Fund resources.
Eurozone leaders were originally to debate on Friday, in a special restricted session on the second day of a European Union summit in Brussels, whether to combine a temporary firewall with a permanent pot due to come into effect in July.
This would give the debt-wracked 17-nation zone a total fund of some 750 billion euros ($1 trillion).
However, EU president Herman Van Rompuy on Tuesday delayed this sensitive discussion.
A source said a special summit of the 17 euro currency partners could be held next month instead.
"Don't rule out a (eurozone) meeting before March ends," he said.
In new conclusions for the summit, also seen by AFP on Tuesday ahead of their planned adoption, the leaders of the 27 EU states "encouraged G20 finance ministers to continue their work with a view to reaching agreement on an increase in the IMF's resources at their next meeting in April."
This is "in order to enhance the IMF's capacity to fulfil its systemic responsibilities in support of its global membership," they were to say, in a clear sign that Europe wants the rest of the world to act alongside the eurozone and supportive EU states.
As a result, discussion of the firewall this week is expected to be "very, very brief," an EU diplomat also told AFP.
The diplomat stressed that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble says March would be "timely," in other words sufficient, for a detailed debate among eurozone governments.
Schaeuble also said that pouring in more cash to the pot "didn't make any economic sense."
Eurozone countries themselves have already promised 150 billion euros to the IMF in the hope of reassuring the markets they have the resources to tackle a re-emergence of the crisis.
But countries outside the zone, including the United States, Britain, Japan and China insisted at the G20 meeting that the eurozone do more.
Senior figures at the IMF have tentatively scheduled March 13 for their talks on the issue, but delays on both sides of the equation raise the prospect of the debate dragging on.
In the hours before the summit starts on Thursday at 6:00 pm (1700 GMT), eurozone finance ministers will hold a discussion on Greece, to check whether the government in Athens has met a string of conditions for a second bailout worth 237 billion euros ($310 billion).
When currency partners finally backed a second bailout last week, they set a long list of conditions that had to be fulfilled by a February 29 deadline.
A governmental source in Athens said Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos will arrive in Brussels on Wednesday for the talks.
He is to start a day early with a meeting with European Commission chiefs to discuss ways to re-direct nearly 8.0 billion euros ($11 billion) of EU grants allocated to Athens between now and 2013.
By the end of the summit, Van Rompuy is expected to have been elected to chair formal bi-annual eurozone summits.
He is also set to be returned for a new 30-month mandate as full EU president, after leaders sign on Friday morning a new treaty on fiscal stability agreed by 25 EU states, minus the Czech Republic and the United Kingdom.
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