Poland, Denmark give euro debt deal cautious welcome

(WARSAW) - Current EU president Poland and successor Denmark gave a cautious welcome Thursday to a last-ditch deal to shore up the debt-ravaged eurozone.

"We can allow ourselves mild yet firm optimism," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said after a meeting with his visiting Danish counterpart Helle Thorning-Schmidt.

"This is a serious -- and at last real -- step towards dealing with the crisis," he said.

Leaders from the eurozone in Brussels reached a deal early Thursday to fix their festering debt crisis, boosting a bailout fund to a trillion euros, pledging new money for Greece and pushing banks to take a 50-percent loss, or "haircut," on their holdings of Greek debt.

They acted amid raging concerns that the crisis could spiral out of control, taking Italy with it and threatening a new global recession.

"This is a big day for Europe," Thorning-Schmidt said alongside Tusk.

Both leaders attended Wednesday's summit of all 27 European Union states, held before the separate gathering of the 17 members that use the euro.

Neither Poland nor Denmark are in the eurozone.

Warsaw, however, has been keen to have its voice heard as it holds the EU's rotating presidency from July to December this year, before Copenhagen takes the helm.

"The Polish and Danish presidencies will work to ensure that the upcoming mechanisms and eurozone integration measures will offer protection for the integration of the entire European Union," Tusk said.

The EU's 10 non-eurozone members have expressed concern that tighter policy links within the currency bloc could accelerate the development of a "two-speed" Europe to their disadvantage.