Brussels - AFP
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou on Sunday stepped into a crunch EU debt crisis summit urging Europe to \"act decisively and effectively\" to contain troubles threatening the continent and beyond. \"It\'s been proven now that the crisis is not a Greek crisis,\" he said in comments to the press. \"The crisis is a European crisis. So now is the time that we as Europeans need to act decisively and effectively.\" \"Greece has proven again and again that we are making the necessary decisions to make our economy sustainable and make our economy more just,\" Papandreou said after the country\'s parliament this week adopted fresh austerity measures. At the Sunday summit of the European Union\'s 27 leaders, to be followed by a summit of the 17-nation eurozone, European leaders will try to come to an understanding on how to contain a crisis that began in Greece and now threatens to spill over to Italy and Spain. A follow-up summit on Wednesday is expected to finalise a plan, by recapitalising banks, settling details of a new rescue of Greece and beefing up the EU\'s bailout fund. \"We are a proud people,\" Papandreou added. \"We are a proud nation and we demand that respect of what we\'re doing. And we are doing what we need from our side, the responsibility that we are taking on, with great pain, to make Greece a different country.\"