EUROPEAN LEADERS SEEK ASIAN SUPPORT ON DEBT CRISIS

VIENTIANE, Laos - Dozens of European and Asian leaders will gather in impoverished Laos on Monday for a major summit set to be dominated by the eurozone debt crisis and growing territorial tensions in the region.

Top European officials including French President Francois Hollande and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti are due to spearhead efforts to reassure Asia that the long-running eurozone crisis is finally coming under control.
The diplomatic offensive is seen as a sign of the growing importance that debt-laden Europe places on Asia's fast-growing economies, and its desire to counter increased US engagement in the region.

European Union president Herman Van Rompuy (above photo) is also among those converging on Laos, a landlocked country of just six million people on the verge of joining the World Trade Organization as it opens up its fast-growing economy.

• But German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- who warned over the weekend that it would take more than five years to overcome the euro debt crisis -- will not attend, sending her foreign minister instead.
• The Asia-Europe Meeting, held every two years, provides an opportunity to boost links between two regions that together account for about half of the global GDP.
• Europe's leaders may also lobby Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao to deploy some of Beijing's trove of about $3 trillion in foreign exchange reserves; the largest in the world  to invest in EU bailout funds.

Asian leaders for their part are expected to press Europe to take swift action to calm a crisis that has battered the world economy and set back efforts to reduce global poverty.

Source: Agency