The European Commission initially pushed for a more central role in the mechanism. It proposed that, rather than set up an SPV, member states should agree directly to guarantee the Commission as it raised money on the capital markets. This was firmly rejected by Germany, the UK, Austria, Finland and the Netherlands, which objected to the idea of allowing the Commission to take on such high levels of debt. Sweden and the UK successfully argued that the ECB should not be involved in running the mechanism. 

Another point of dispute was how and when this fund would be made available. Germany, the Netherlands and Finland insisted that a decision to make money available should be unanimous. They partly lost this point: while activation of the €440bn mechanism requires the unanimous support of the eurozone countries, activation of the €60bn mechanism requires only a qualified majority of the 27 EU states.

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Alistair Darling, the UK’s finance minister, said before Sunday’s meeting that the UK would not contribute to an emergency fund for the eurozone. In principle, however, the shape of the final agreement means that the UK could be liable if the Commission miscalculates and needs to pay back more than €60bn to one of its creditors.

Some governments wanted to make the mechanism similar to a €110bn loan facility set up for Greece, which works on the basis of bilateral loans. The Commission, however, successfully argued against this on the grounds that it would be too complicated.