EU crisis fund plan ready by Sunday lunch: Official

BRUSSELS: The European Commission will "discuss and adopt" detailed plans for a new crisis fund designed to head off market predators threatening the eurozone from 1:00 pm on Sunday, an EU spokesman said.

The European Union executive "is working today on the proposal it will make to the council for the European Stabilisation Mechanism to preserve financial stability in Europe," a Brussels spokesman said on Saturday.

The 27-member commission will meet at 1:00 pm (1100 GMT) on Sunday "to discuss and adopt that proposal" ahead of an emergency summit of EU finance ministers as the bloc bids to calm agitated markets when they reopen on Monday.

In the early hours of Saturday, commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso insisted that the new mechanism "will be done under the existing financial possibilities in the community budget."

However, diplomats were still eagerly awaiting sight of the details later in the day, with non-euro countries particularly anxious to learn of the likely longer-term impact on their share of EU funding.

While bailouts are banned by EU treaties, the commission is planning to use powers in "exceptional circumstances" that previously allowed it to help non-euro members like Hungary, Latvia or Romania, by borrowing on the bond market.

Sources said 70 billion euros (90 billion dollars) could be raised in this way, while European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet is not ruling out a so-called 'nuclear' option, introducing emergency provisions for the buying of government debt, according to Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.