EU States to Send IMF EU200B in Crisis Fight

European leaders stepped up the fight against the debt crisis, channeling as much as 200 billion Euros ($267 billion) to the International Monetary Fund and bowing to European Central Bank demands for a tightening of anti-deficit rules. In an accord hailed by ECB President Mario Draghi, the leaders also laid out a new “fiscal compact” to prevent future debt runups and accelerated the startup of a planned permanent 500 billion-euro rescue fund. “It’s a very good outcome for euro-area members and it’s going to be the basis for a good fiscal compact and more disciplined economic policy in euro-area countries,” Draghi told reporters after 12 hours of overnight talks in Brussels. At the same time, the leaders ventured into untested legal territory by plotting to anchor the tougher budget rules in a separate euro-area treaty after Britain and Hungary balked at amending the existing treaty covering all 27 EU countries.