In fact, the meeting was in part taken over by the growing sovereign debt crisis (at that time, Greece), which was to become the hall mark of Van Rompuy's first two years as President. With EU member states holding divergent positions on this issue, he had to find compromises, not least between France and Germany, at subsequent European Council meetings and summits of Eurozone heads of state or government leading to the establishment of the three-year European Financial Stability Mechanism (EFSM)and the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) in May 2010, to provide loans to Greece (and later Ireland and Portugal) to help stabilise their borrowing costs, but subject to strict conditions.
