German Chancellor Angela Merkel returns to the front line of theEuropean debt crisis this week as the bloc's leaders squabble overmeasures including bond purchases to relieve concerns the singlecurrency may fragment.

Merkel ends her summer vacation to oversee a Cabinet meetingAug. 15 before departing for Canada and talks with Prime MinisterStephen Harper as the spiraling crisis threatens the globaleconomy. With policy makers awaiting a German high court decisionon bailout funding next month, they're struggling to smoothdivisions over a European Central Bank plan to buy the bonds ofindebted nations.

“It makes no sense for the ECB to start financing” Spain andItaly, ECB Governing Council member Luc Coene said in an interviewwith Belgian newspapers De Tijd and L'Echo published on Aug. 11.“It would only lead to the ECB taking on the whole public debt ofSpain and Italy onto its balance sheet.”