Berlin tempers summit hopes, banks under pressure

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told a conference in Duesseldorf that European governments would adopt a five-point plan at the Brussels meeting to address the turmoil that has clouded the outlook for the global economy.

This is expected to include a plan to recapitalize banks and reduce Greece's debt mountain by asking the country's private creditors to accept steeper writedowns on their holdings than the 21 percent losses agreed last July.

But Schaeuble cautioned that the meeting would not yield a "definitive solution" for the crisis that started in Greece two years ago and has since spread across the 17-nation bloc, leading some experts to predict a breakup.