Both Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the Luxembourg premier who heads the group of euro-zone countries, said that private-sector creditors would face restructuring on a „case-by-case“ basis—and not automatically, as Germany had wished.

The new system wouldn‘t affect creditors until mid-2013, and new „collective action clauses“—a regular feature of debt issued by certain emerging-market governments—that could smooth restructuring would only be inserted into euro-zone bonds issued from June 2013 onward.