Germany said European Union leaders won't provide the completefix to the euro-area debt crisis that global policy makers arepushing for at an Oct. 23 summit.

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German Chancellor Angela Merkel has made it clear that “dreamsthat are taking hold again now that with this package everythingwill be solved and everything will be over on Monday won't be ableto be fulfilled,” Steffen Seibert, Merkel's chief spokesman, saidat a briefing in Berlin today. The search for an end to the crisis“surely extends well into next year.”

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Group of 20 finance ministers and central bankers concludedweekend talks in Paris endorsing parts of an emerging plan to avoida Greek default, bolster banks and curb contagion. They set theOct. 23 summit of European leaders in Brussels as the deadline forit to be delivered.

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On the summit agenda is how any recapitalization of Europe'sbanks “might be carried out in a coordinated way” and how to makethe European Financial Stability Facility, the EU's rescue fund forindebted states, as effective as possible, Seibert said. Theleaders will also discuss ways to tighten economic and financialpolicy, he said.

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The euro retreated from a one-month high against the dollarafter Seibert's comments, following last week's biggest gain inmore than two years on speculation that European policy makers arestepping up efforts to stop the crisis. German 10-year bondsrallied and the Stoxx Europe 600 Index pared an advance of as muchas 1.5 percent and was up 0.3 percent at 12:47 p.m. inFrankfurt.

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One-Week Deadline

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While European leaders gave themselves one week to settledifferences and flesh out a strategy to stop the sovereign debtcrisis, global finance chiefs warned that failure to do so wouldthreaten the world economy.

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“The risk of a recession would be increased dramatically werethe Europeans to fail to accomplish goals that they've set forthemselves,” Canadian Finance Minister Jim Flaherty said after theG-20 meeting, which ended Oct. 15.

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Two years to the week since Greece triggered the turmoil byrevising its budget math, the inability of policy makers to stampit out has pushed the Greek government to the edge of default andthe European economy close to recession.

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As the head of Europe's biggest economy and the biggestcontributor to bailouts for Greece, Ireland and Portugal, Merkelholds the key to resolving the crisis now focused on the strengthof Europe's banks.

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Leaders won't present a “definitive solution” for the euroregion's debt crisis at the summit in Brussels, Reuters citedGerman Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble as saying.

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Euro members will seek to agree on five elements of a plan tosolve the region's woes, including a debt reduction for Greece,Reuters cited Schaeuble as saying in a speech at a tax advisers'conference in Dusseldorf.

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Bloomberg News

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