“Waiting for the crash” headlines Gazeta Wyborcza, which warns that the EU is running out of time in which to curb the Eurozone crisis. The Warsaw daily sums up the main points of a plan presented by José Manuel Barroso before the European Parliament on 12 October: “Bolster the banks. Bailout Greece. Enhance cooperation in the Eurozone.” The problems that the plan seeks to solve are interrelated, notes GW, and while “the diagnosis has been known for a long time, the prescription is extremely costly. Work on the drafting of bailout plans has dragged on, with EU politicians afraid of the voters who already came to the aid of banks in 2008 and 2009.” And as financier George Soros and 95 other concerned Europeans have stated in an open letter, “the euro crisis needs a solution now”. However, the details of the solution still remain unclear. GW points out that Barroso did not specify, for instance, the amount of recapitalisation needed to bolster the struggling banks. “Will Europe manage to avoid the collapse?” asks the daily. All hopes now seem to rest with the “comprehensive package” to be tabled by Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy by the end of October. “If that fails, the time of doom is near”, concludes Gazeta Wyborcza.
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