Europe's leaders today cap their latest effort to check the financial crisis that claimed Cyprus this week as its fifth victim.

Euro-area finance ministers set the stage for today's gathering in Brussels of the European Union's 27 chiefs, approving Cyprus's bailout and detailing how they would aid Spanish banks. Consensus breaks down on safeguarding governments in Spain and Italy, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel rejecting calls to do more to cut their borrowing costs.

“People have been imagining too many moments of truth over the past few years, and Europe has been able to continue kicking the can,” said Sebastian Paris-Horvitz, chief market strategist at HSBC Private Bank Suisse in Paris. “The issue today is that indeed the problem has become much bigger. We are not talking about tiny Greece but big Spain and even bigger Italy.”