Euro zone finance ministers aim rapidly to iron out wrinkles in the 750 billion euro ($925 billion) plan they hatched a week ago to calm markets and stem fears of serial Greek-style debt crises in the currency area.
After talks in Brussels, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and others played down what some officials described as Franco-German differences over the way the anti-contagion mechanism would be deployed if countries needed it.
"It was more about technical things than differences," the German minister said, without elaborating.
Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg prime minister and chairman of the talks, also said outstanding issues were "technical" and that ministers hoped to resolve them on Friday when they would return to Brussels to discuss longer-term policy matters.
The package hammered out at emergency talks a week ago comprises standby funds and loan guarantees that euro zone governments could tap if shut out of credit markets as Greece was.
It was produced after markets fearful of debt default turned their attention, after the rescue of Greece, to other euro zone members such as Portugal and Spain, which in return for that safety net have agreed to pursue extra austerity measures.
While financial markets rallied on news of the package on Monday last week, triggering a drop in the cost they charge to refinance sovereign debt in countries including Spain and Portugal, the euro is under renewed pressure.
The euro's exchange rate versus the dollar has fallen about 7 percent in the past month and some 14 percent this year. It dipped to $1.2234, its lowest since April 2006, at one stage on Monday.
LONGER TERM
The finance ministers also broached questions of reform of economic governance and fiscal reform at pan-European level for the longer term, in addition to voicing support for what Juncker called "courageous" new austerity steps by Madrid and Lisbon.
They agreed to consider in coming days and weeks proposals that the European Commission, the European Union's executive body, produced last week at their request.
The Commission proposed that broad macroeconomic outlines of national budgets be discussed in advance at European level, and suggested speedier penalty procedures for countries that breach EU budget rules.
Schaeuble said it was time to look beyond crisis containment to concrete decisions on debt-control rules for the future.
"It must be made clear that policymakers set the rules, not the markets," he said. The 16-country euro zone needed to cut deficits, discuss how to improve economic growth and find ways to strengthen the fiscal rules of the EU Stability and Growth Pact.
The bailout of Greece was a first for the euro zone, where contagion fears and now concerns that growth will be hit by austerity measures have been blamed for the dip in the euro.
Some economists say, however, a weaker euro could help the area's exports and thus offset some of the toll exacted by government spending cuts and tax increases.
Luxembourg's Juncker said he was less worried about the euro's level than the pace at which the exchange rate was changing.
He told a news conference the euro was "credible" and would continue to benefit from the price stability the currency bloc has enjoyed for the 11 years since its launch.
The euro's fall, analysts say, is fueled not just by concern over bloated debts but also the risk that debt-shrinking austerity measures will stunt post-recession economic recovery.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Sunday that the 750 billion euro market stabilization package had merely bought the euro zone time to address a deeper problem: a yawning gap between its strongest and weakest economies.
Before the global financial crisis and recession of 2007-09, several small euro zone countries such as Greece, Portugal and Ireland, plus mid-size economy Spain, enjoyed economic growth fueled by credit and, in the case of the latter two, housing and construction booms that have now gone bust.
They are now under pressure to find other sources of growth, and some including French Economy Minister Christine Lagarde have said the flipside is that Germany should do more for Europe by boosting its domestic consumption.
Gross domestic product in the euro zone contracted more than 4 percent last year, far more than a dip in U.S. GDP of around 2.4 percent. The European Commission forecasts that GDP will rise just 0.9 percent in 2010 and 1.5 percent in 2011, compared to U.S. GDP gains of 2.8 percent and 2.5 percent.
