European leaders return to work this week seeking to buy timefor the Spanish and Italian governments to wrest control over theirdebt and rescue the single currency from fragmentation in its 10thanniversary year.

Some 157 billion euros ($203 billion) in debt will mature in the17-member euro area in the first three months of 2012, according toUBS AG. By the end of that period, leaders have pledged to draft astricter rulebook for controlling government spending. GermanChancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy willmeet in Berlin Jan. 9 to work out details.

“The road to overcoming this won't be without setbacks, but atthe end of this path Europe will emerge stronger from the crisisthan before,” Merkel said in a New Year's speech broadcast Dec. 31.Merkel, whose first official appointment is on Jan. 5, reiteratedthat her government will do “everything” to bring the euro out ofthe slump.