EU lead­ers have gone in­to a Brus­sels sum­mit buoyed by a land­mark deal on cen­tralised su­per­vi­sion of eu­ro­zone banks, seen as a key in­te­gra­tion step. The Eu­ro­pean Com­mis­sion said the lead­ers must "keep the same sense of ur­gency" de­spite an eas­ing of mar­ket pres­sure on the eu­ro­zone re­cent­ly.

The UK gov­ern­ment says the new agree­ment does not threat­en the City of Lon­don, the EU's main fi­nan­cial cen­tre. The lead­ers will dis­cuss a far-reach­ing roadmap for eu­ro­zone in­te­gra­tion. UK Prime Min­is­ter David Cameron said the deal reached by EU fi­nance min­is­ters af­ter all-night talks "pro­tect­ed our in­ter­ests in the sin­gle mar­ket". He praised UK Chan­cel­lor George Os­borne for "an ex­cel­lent job".

The UK, along with Den­mark, has a for­mal opt-out from join­ing the eu­ro, and will not be part of the new bank­ing union. But the UK's bank­ing pre-em­i­nence in Eu­rope means it is tak­ing an in­tense in­ter­est in the ne­go­ti­a­tions. Cameron said "this change does give us a chance to get a bet­ter deal in Eu­rope."

BBC