Franse president ziet kansen voor euro-obligaties ondanks verzet van Duitsland

BRUSSELS - At his first ever EU summit, French President Hollande admitted there were differences in opinion on the nature of economic growth and the merits of eurobonds while seeming bemused by the length of the meeting.

At around 1am in the morning, the socialist leader - whose views on growth have altered the nature of the policy debate in Europe - appeared before press for 45 minutes, in sharp contrast to German leader Angela Merkel i who gave a short statement and took two questions.

Summing up the meeting, which was meant to be a free-ranging discussion on how to fix Europe's economy, Hollande said that there had been "no conflict or confrontation" but that he reminded his colleagues of his "vision" on growth.

The main point of interest - and the one that had resulted in a tit-for-tat exchange between Berlin and Paris ahead of Wednesday's meeting - was the question of mutualising eurozone i debt in the form of eurobonds.

The positions were no closer after five hours of debate. While Hollande said he understands eurobonds as something that can be the "starting point" for discussions on growth, he noted that Berlin believes eurobonds will not lead to growth and will only be the result of "long term integration."

He also noted that there were others who were "more against" the idea of eurobonds than the German chancellor but that he was "not the only one" advocating them.

But diplomats at the meeting suggested Hollande had won a symbolic victory through the fact that eurobonds formed a major part of the evening's discussion - with the Italian leader Mario Monti i suggesting that most countries are in favour of the idea.

The informal summit is meant to feed into the traditional summer summit next month where leaders are due to make concrete some of Wednesday evening's discussion points, such as increasing the capital of the European Investment Bank.

But for Hollande it was also lengthy introduction to the EU way of doing things, where the 27 leaders conduct a 'tour de table' - offering their views but not necessarily debating with one another.

"They speak for very varied amounts of time," he noted. Some can say their thoughts in "a few minutes" others, for reasons unknown, take up "part of the evening."