| The financial turmoil spreading in the European Union (EU) is expected to dominate the two-day EU summit, which opens on Wednesday in Brussels.
The following is a chronology of major events in the financial turmoil in the EU:
Sept. 29 -- Britain announces plan of nationalization of mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley Plc. Banking.
Sept. 29 -- Dutch-Belgian banking and insurance group Fortis ispulled back from the verge of bankruptcy as the governments of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg agree to invest a total of11.2 billion euros (some 7.79 billion U.S. dollars) in return for a minority stake in the group.
Sept. 30 -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown says his government will do " whatever it takes "to protect people's savings in the face of the ongoing global financial crisis."
Oct. 1 -- Belgium, France and Luxembourg rush to provide nearly 6.4 billion euros to save Franco-Belgian bank Dexia, the latest victim of the global credit crunch in Europe.
Oct. 1 -- The European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso calls for a joint response from the EU member states to the current financial crisis.
Oct. 2 -- Irish parliamentarians vote to enact radical legislation guaranteeing Irish bank deposits and debts up to a total of 400 billion euros.
Oct. 3 -- The Dutch government says it has bought all the Dutch operations of Belgian-Dutch banking and insurance group Fortis for16.8 billion euros.
Oct. 4 -- Leaders from the EU's four largest economies -- Germany, Britain, France and Italy -- vow to work in a coordinated way in tackling financial crisis.
Oct. 5 -- Germany pledges to guarantee private deposits, which the government says is a "political" step to restore public confidence toward the banking system.
Oct. 6 -- The troubled banking and insurance group Fortis confirms that French banking giant BNP Paribas will buy all of Fortis' insurance operations in Belgium and a 75-percent stake in Fortis' banking activities in Belgium.
Oct. 8 -- The British government announces a 50-billion-pound bailout scheme for the financial system to help its biggest retail banks survive.
Oct. 9 -- The governments of Belgium, France and Luxembourg will guarantee all new borrowings and bond financings of the troubled lender Dexia until November next year, according to the bank.
Oct. 11 -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel call for joint actions from Europe or even the world to fight the ongoing critical financial crisis.
Oct. 12 -- Leaders from the eurozone countries hammer out an action plan in a joint response to the unfolding financial crisis at their first ever summit in Paris.
Oct. 12 -- The Norwegian government and the country's central bank announce that they would issue up to 350 billion kroner (about 57.41 billion U.S. dollars) in new government bonds which can be used as collateral in Norwegian banks' funding operations, to boost confidence in the financial market in the country.
Oct. 13 -- The British government announces a plan to invest up to 37 billion pounds (about 64 billion U.S. dollars) in three British banks -- Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and Lloyds TSB – to deal with the current financial crisis.
Oct. 13 -- Germany is to inject 70 billion euros into the banking system of the country this week as part of a rescue plan for the world economic system, according to German news agency DPA.
Oct. 13 -- The Netherlands will provide state guarantee to inter-bank loans of up to 200 billion euros in a bid to increase market liquidity by restarting capital flows among banks, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende says. (1 U.S. dollar = 0.6957 euro)
(Xinhua News Agency October 14, 2008) | 
