It should have been the moment when the whole of Europe pulled in the same direction to rebuild the world’s financial system.

Instead, a gathering of EU leaders yesterday before next month’s G20 summit was marked by suspicion and self-interest, with the economic crisis exposing deep faultlines on how best to respond to the downturn.

The meeting was overshadowed by a cacophony of competing interests and the rejection of a cry for help from Eastern Europe, even though delegates agreed in a final statement to cooperate and fight protectionism.

The Czech Republic, which holds the rotating EU presidency, called the summit on the back of a row that President Sarkozy started when he suggested that French car companies with plants in Eastern Europe should relocate to France to create local jobs.

Donald Tusk, the Polish Prime Minister, called a pre-meeting of nine Eastern European leaders because of concerns that Western EU countries were more focused on saving Western jobs and industries.

As leaders arrived in Brussels for the summit, Ferenc Gyurcsany, the Hungarian Prime Minister, said that rich European countries should stand by poorer neighbours and called on the EU to set up a €190 billion (£168 billion) fund to bail out Eastern Europe.

“We should not allow a new Iron Curtain to be set up and divide Europe in two parts,” he said.

He also appealed for concessionary terms for flailing Eastern economies to join the single currency. “It is in Europe’s interest to bring everyone into the eurozone. We have to do our best to have these processes,” he said. “At the beginning of the Nineties we reunified Europe. Now it is another challenge: whether we can unify Europe in terms of financing and its economy.”

Jean-Claude Juncker, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg and the chairman of the eurogroup of 16 single-currency countries, rejected his pleas. “I do not think we can change the accession criteria to the euro overnight,” he said. “This is not feasible.”

He did make one concession when he suggested that there could be a discussion about relaxing the stability rules for joining the pre-euro exchange rate mechanism.

Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, led the opposition to Mr Gyurcsány’s proposed bailout fund. “Saying that the situation is the same for all Central and Eastern European states, I do not see that,” she said.

The summit agreed to keep the status quo and to look at each country case by case.

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