Spain is annoyed at France for not inviting it to a weekend mini-summit, a government official said yesterday, in further evidence of spreading divisions between European governments over tackling the financial crisis.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was not asked to accompany his counterparts from Italy, Germany and Britain at the meeting organised by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, even though Spain is the euro zone's fourth-largest economy and home to its largest bank.
The snub came as European Union nations struggled to find a unified response to the global financial crisis. Ireland's decision to guarantee all its bank deposits has prompted bitter criticism from partner countries and prompted Germany, Austria and Denmark to follow suit.