In the spirit of close coordination, the leaders made it clear that EU governments should take into consideration the potential cross-border effects of their national decisions when tackling the financial crisis, in an obvious reference to Ireland’s recent decision to guarantee all the savings at Irish-owned banks.

The unilateral move by Irish government angered other EU countries, notably Britain, which worried about a flurry of savings withdrawals from their own banks to Irish peers.

The European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, was invited at the summit to present a legislative proposal in the near future on harmonization of EU deposit guarantee schemes.

(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

The money had been committed by EU member states at a meeting of finance ministers in Nice last month, but the British government wanted the European Investment Bank to make those funds available ahead of previous schedule.

Brown said the governments would continue to assure liquidity and prevent any sound and solvent bank from failing.

“Where action has to be taken we will continue to do whatever is necessary to preserve the stability of the financial system,” Brown said. “The message to families and businesses is that, as our central banks are already doing, liquidity will be assured in order to preserve confidence and stability.”

EU leaders also made a call for restraints on executive pay, strict oversight of credit rating agencies and quick change of accounting rules to ensue European financial institutions are not disadvantaged with their international competitors.