In the picture: The EU's October summit

Taking a step back, Philip Whyte at the Centre for European Reform argues that the initial June report from the gang of four "marked an important departure, because its focus shifted to correcting the eurozone's architectural flaws rather than the behaviour of its members." While the policy areas it covered may have been "dry and technical", the plan was "deeply political", he says. "It proposed that the stabilisation of the eurozone required key functions to be moved from national level to European level. It was, in other words, a plan to federalise the eurozone."