EU President Herman Van Rompuy on Thursday declined to say if he would accept becoming permanent chair of regular eurozone summits, saying only that European leaders will decide on new institutional structures for the group at an October summit, dpa reported.
"I can't accept something which is not offered yet," Van Rompuy told a news conference in Oslo, where he held talks with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg.
Earlier this week, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel proposed after a bilateral meeting in Paris that Van Rompuy should chair regular eurozone summits.
Van Rompuy pointed out that he has already chaired four ad-hoc eurozone summits - two in 2010, as well as in March and July this year - so "I already do the job."
On the economic crisis, the EU president said "we all in the global economy have a responsibility to put our house in order."
"What we are doing in the eurozone is in a stepwise approach, to restore financial stability in the eurozone. That is our biggest contribution to the stability of the world economy," he said.
"The United States has the same mission," Van Rompuy added.
Stoltenberg noted that Norway was not a member of the European Union or the eurozone but was "very dependent on the economic situation in Europe."
He said the combination of "high public debt, with low economic growth and high unemployment" posed big challenges.
The two leaders also visited sites of the July 22 attacks where 77 people died.
...