国际英语新闻：EU leaders adopt landmark reforms on economic governance

"Heads of state and government agree on the need for member states to establish a permanent crisis mechanism to safeguard the financial stability of the euro area as a whole," Van Rompuy said, adding he was tasked with examining options for the treaty change and would present proposals at the next EU summit in December.

Some EU member states had been reluctant to accept the idea of treaty change, citing fear that any renegotiation of the Lisbon Treaty, which replaced the failed Constitution Treaty and just came into force last December, would open Pandora's Box and lead to years of bargaining and ratification chaos.

But Germany, in a joint call with France last week, insisted on that approach.

Germany was the largest contributor to the 110-billion-euro (152 billion U.S. dollars) bailout of Greece and a 750-billion-euro (about 1 trillion U.S. dollars) rescue package established in May to counter the spread of Greek debt crisis, which would expire by 2013.

Berlin had objected a simple extension of the rescue package, warning that without changes to the Lisbon Treaty, any of its contribution to the future bailout fund could be annulled by its Constitutional Court.

The Lisbon Treaty contains a clause which prohibits EU member states from bailing each other out.

With the treaty change, Germany and France also wanted future violators of EU budgetary rules in the euro zone to be temporarily deprived of their voting rights in EU decisions.

The task force report spelled out financial sanctions ranging from interest bearing deposits to fines, but stopped short of political punishment.

Although many EU governments voiced their strong opposition to the suspension of voting rights, EU leaders did not totally reject the idea, but left the issue on the table.

Van Rompuy said he "intends to subsequently examine in consultation with the member states the issue of the right to participate in decision-making in the European monetary union-related procedures in case of a permanent threat to the stability of the euro zone as a whole."

The reforms, most of which would be applied to the 16 euro-zone countries at the first stage, marked the biggest change since the euro was created in 1999 and were designed to prevent a repeat of the Greek-style sovereign debt crisis, which devastated Europe this year.