The NS and ProRail assumed on Thursday of last week that there would be three to five centimetres of snow. When the forecast was increased on Friday morning to between 10 and 15 centimetres, it was too late to change the timetables automatically, Schultz van Haegen told parliament.

Drivers and conductors had to be told about the changes individually which cost time and delayed the availability of information to passengers, she said.

Once the new schedule was up and running, it did provide ‘a predictable and reliable service’ from Sunday onwards, the Volkskrant quotes the minister as saying.

Schultz van Haegen says she will be consulting ‘experts’ from countries with experience of extreme weather conditions to find solutions to the chaos on the railways whenever it snows.

But she also says the railways will remain ‘vulnerable’ because of the ‘intensive use of the trains and track’.

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Evangelos Venizelos added that a planned meeting by eurozone ministers on Greece originally scheduled for Monday would now be held on Wednesday.

“I will participate in a Eurogroup telephone conference at 1230 GMT” to discuss details of a rescue deal for Greece worth 130 billion euros ($171 billion) which officials have been trying to seal since October, the minister said in a statement.

“Critical issues pertaining to the country’s future remained open” after 12 hours of “tough” negotiations Friday with the European Union, International Monetary Fund and European Central Bank, he said.

The three organisations, which rescued Greece in 2010 with an earlier loan, are demanding further labour cost cuts which Greek unions are refusing to concede amid fears that they could worsen an already deep recession.

Venizelos will brief fellow cabinet ministers before another meeting with senior auditors from the EU, IMF and ECB, known locally as the ‘troika’, a finance ministry source said on Saturday.

The political coalition backing Greece’s interim government is strongly opposed to the troika’s demands for further civil servant cuts and to a reduction in the minimum wage, currently at 750 euros.

Prime Minister Lucas Papademos has reportedly threatened to resign if his coalition backers reject the demanded austerity measures.

The government spokesman on Friday declined to comment on the reports.

“I do not want to make such assumptions,” spokesman Pantelis Kapsis told Real FM radio. “I think the political leaders and the prime minister will jointly take the decisions on how we will proceed from now on.”

Representatives of private holders of Greek debt are also returning to Athens this weekend for more negotiations on a crucial writedown Greece needs to avoid sovereign default.

A spokesman for the Institute of International Finance, the global banking organisation leading the debt writedown talks, said in an email to AFP that IIF chief Charles Dallara and Jean Lemierre, adviser to French bank BNP Paribas, were headed to the Greek capital to continue the talks.

Greece has been negotiating for months to obtain debt relief under the so-called Private Sector Initiative as a condition for receiving a second international bailout from the EU and the IMF, agreed in October.

Eurozone governments and banks have both been playing hardball for weeks in their bid to reduce by at least half the 200 billion euros in privately held Greek debt. The country’s overall debt stands at 350 billion euros.

Papademos said in a statement Friday that Greece had nearly completed negotiations on the eurozone bailout which depends on the debt writedown.

“We are in the final phase of a very critical procedure to form Greece’s new economic programme and complete a loan deal that will lighten the load of the public debt and ensure the country’s financing for many years to come,” he said.

Pressure is mounting for Greece to strike a deal with private creditors.

The finance minister this week said an official offer to creditors must be made by February 15.

Athens faces debt repayments of 14.4 billion euros ($19 billion) on March 20.

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At a conference celebrating the fifth anniversary of Romania’s accession to the European Union, he accused the Dutch government of “abuse” and claimed it was blocking Romanian and Bulgarian membership of the passport-free Schengen Zone on false pretences.

He repeated an earlier accusation that the Dutch government is being held to ransom by Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party and said he was “concerned that anti-European parties are taking part in governments.”

The Netherlands argues that Romania and Bulgaria are not doing enough to tackle corruption and organised crime. Immigration, Integration and Asylum Minister Gerd Leers said their membership could not be supported until that situation improves.

Denmark, which currently occupies the rotating EU presidency, has called on the Netherlands to abandon its opposition. It says there are no grounds for objecting to Schengen membership for the two East European countries.

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Much of the high-tech surveillance equipment has already been installed on the Dutch borders with Belgium and Germany. The cameras apparently collect data on the models and colours of cars crossing the border.

The idea is that if, for instance, it is thought that convoys of white vans moving at night are being used to transport illegal foreign workers to the Netherlands, the cameras can be set to alert police to this sort of suspicious convoy. The police can then intercept the vans.

More free movement
Mr Leers has written to the European Union defending the idea of using the cameras in this way, saysEUobserver. He argues that the cameras provide an alternative to more invasive policing of the borders of the Netherlands, which is a member of the ‘borderless’ Schengen group of countries.

By ensuring that Dutch border police run sample checks “at the right time and right place”, the minister says, fewer bona fide travellers will be stopped unnecessarily. He maintains this will actually guarantee more freedom of movement – the basic principle of the Schengen treaty.

At the moment, the Dutch police carry out border checks at random.

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‘There are currently 23 million people in the EU without work and in the long term, that is not sustainable,’ Rutte said.

‘The internal market can be an important motor for growth, but only 40% of the EU economy falls under it. That percentage must be increased,’ Rutte said in a statement.

At the same time, moves to improve budgetary discipline within the eurozone are being taken. ‘The agreements in the stability and growth pact have been tightened up considerably, meaning faster and tougher intervention can take place,’ Rutte said.

Fiscal treaty

During the summit, 25 of the 27 EU leaders agreed to join a fiscal treaty to enforce budgetary discipline. Britain and the Czech Republic opted out.

The treaty, largely agreed last December, gives a greater role to the European Commission in making sure national budgets meet the rules and allows the European Court of Justice to monitor compliance.

Rutte also said the EU must continue to expand its presence in foreign markets. This is particularly important for country like the Netherlands whose economy is based on exports, he said.

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But the announcement that that 25 of 27 European Union nations had adopted the new pact on budgetary discipline was overshadowed by outrage over a German suggestion heavily indebted Greece submit its finances to EU review.

The idea of placing the cradle of European democracy under the supervision of an EU budget tsar quickly failed to gain traction at the summit in Brussels.

“There cannot be any talk of putting any nation under wardenship. It would not be reasonable, democratic and efficient,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a news conference.

Sarkozy said that German Chancellor Angela Merkel did not back the idea, suggesting the proposal came from others in her government.

Merkel, however, did not repudiate the controversial proposal which Greece’s education minister termed “the product of a sick imagination.”

“I think that in light of the discussions, which are often very emotional, it is important that we come to a conclusion” about the extent of the surveillance of Greece, she told reporters.

Greece is already essentially under supervision with European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund auditors in Athens to ensure the government implements reforms in return for bailout loans.

Athens has been under constant pressure to implement drastic budget cuts and radical economic reforms in return for installments from a first €110-billion bailout it was granted in May 2010.

Merkel noted that a second €130-billion rescue package for Greece, which the eurozone hopes to finalise this week, was conditioned on some form of “surveillance that we are now thinking about how to make more efficient.”

Under the radical German proposal, a commissioner appointed by the 16 other eurozone finance ministers could veto budget decisions made by Athens.

“I am strongly against the idea of imposing a commissioner with that mission only to Greece. That’s not acceptable,” said Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, chairman of the key group of eurozone finance ministers.

Calling the German proposal “vexing,” Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said it “doesn’t achieve anything and it goes in the wrong direction.”

However, the plan drew cautious support from Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, who complained that Greek authorities “are not delivering on reforms.” Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte echoed those sentiments: “Greece must also honour the commitments it has made with us.”

Merkel did not push this plan further, however, said it was about “how Europe can help Greece accomplish the tasks given to it.”

The EU focus on bailouts was supposed to give way at Monday’s summit to a renewed push to stimulate growth and create jobs across European economies.

This idea even saw tentative moves to place an ambitious free-trade deal with the United States on the coming agenda. But at its root was the announcement that 25 of 27 countries had adopted the new pact on budgetary discipline.

The Czech Republic joined Britain on the outside looking in, but a threat by Poland to withdraw evaporated after France gave ground in an argument about the influence of non-euro countries on eurozone summits.

Pushed by Germany and the ECB, the treaty – to be formally signed in March – will require governments to introduce laws on balanced budgets and impose near automatic sanctions on countries that violate deficit rules.

Only those countries that sign up will be able to access bailout aid from a new rescue fund whose legal basis was also ticked off at the talks. It will enter force after 12 nations ratify it.

The pact is a “first step toward a fiscal union,” said European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi amid hopes among some governments that the pact will prompt the ECB to step up a controversial bond purchase programme.

With Italy and Spain still fragile, EU leaders will discuss in March whether to add half as much again to a new rescue fund’s initial €500-billion size, amid wider moves to beef up IMF resources.

“We are getting the feeling that there is a shift in Germany’s position and I am optimistic,” said Italian premier Mario Monti.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said €82 billion of unspent EU funds could kick-start growth and job creation – but with the catch that money is matched locally.

Among ideas adopted by the summit for boosting growth in Europe, there were calls to lower the tax burden on employers to get more people hired, and give all young people guaranteed options in work, training or study.

However, a summit statement concluded: “There are no quick fixes. Our action must be determined, persistent and broad-based.”

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The banks told the FT that they may double or triple their request for funds in the ECB’s three-year money auction on Feb 29, a further sign of the liquidity squeeze faced by the banks, the paper said.

Three bank chief executives, all of whom asked to remain anonymous, told the paper that they were planning to increase their participation two-fold or three-fold. The FT did not name any banks.

In the first of two planned offerings of unlimited cheap money intended to keep credit flowing among banks hammered by the euro zone’s sovereign debt crisis, financial institutions took 489 billion euros on December 22 from the ECB.

The European Central Bank will allot 325 billion euros (£272.4 billion) in its second three-year refinancing tender due in late February so long as money markets remain stressed, a Reuters poll of traders showed.

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Controversy surrounding the ECB’s bond buying programme has escalated in recent weeks. The IMF and private sector have urged it to write down its holdings of Greek bonds, or at least forgo profits, as part of a deal to stabilise the country’s finances.

The ECB is also still at the centre of a fierce political tug-of-war. With German backing it is continuing to resist calls from France and Italy as well as the United States, Britain and Russia to be more aggressive in its buying.

The bank’s latest purchases added up to just 63 million euros, leaving the total it has spent on bonds since starting the buy-ups back in May 2010 at 219 billion euros.

That is a drop from the low-ball 2.24 billion it spent the week before and are just a fraction of what it had been spending when the euro zone debt crisis escalated towards the end of last year. (For details click)

Analysts said the debate surrounding the ECB Greek bond holdings may have encouraged it to limit its market activity and although Portugal is under pressure it does not need to raise long-term funding this year.

It has been a mixed couple of weeks in the euro zone debt crisis.

While last month’s half a trillion euro injection of ECB funding has seen improvements in Italy and Spain, Portugal’s borrowing costs have jumped by more than a third to over 16 percent, sparking fears it will require a second bailout from its euro zone neighbours and the International Monetary Fund.

Talks on convincing Greece’s lenders to write off half their money have also dragged on, adding uncertainty to the situation, although most economists still expect a deal in time to avoid a chaotic default in March.

Portugal woes are starting to unsettle markets. While the premiums investors demand to buy its bonds have been rising fast, the ECB appears to be largely ignoring the problem with traders noting the bank’s absence from bond markets.

Many see the ECB as the only institution with firepower to calm bond markets if the debt crisis worsens, but ECB President Mario Draghi and other top policymakers have continued to reject calls for the bank to ramp up its purchases.

Critics, including Juergen Stark who recently quit the bank over the purchases, argue they tread dangerously close to the ultimate ECB taboo of financing euro zone governments.

Yves Mersch, the ECB’s longest serving policymaker, reiterated the wider bank’s scepticism over the weekend, saying the purchases had no long-term future and that he and his colleagues were always looking for alternatives.

LISBON APPETITE

Despite rising market worries about Lisbon, the ECB knows the country is covered for the rest of the year by its EU/IMF bailout programme.

Reducing anxiety over other debt-strained countries such as Italy and Spain and improvements in the bank-to-bank lending market in the wake of its huge cash injection last month is also likely to have encouraged the bank to reduce its bond buys.

“Amid these more benign circumstances, the ECB seems to have deemed the fine-tuning of sovereign yields to ensure the transmission of monetary policy as largely unnecessary,” said Berenberg bank economist Christian Schulz.

“Despite the sell-off in Portuguese bonds, massive ECB bond purchasing would be unnecessary since Portugal does not need to access financial markets for long-term financing in 2012.”

Deutsche Bank economist Mark Wall added that recent build-up of pressure for the ECB to join the private sector banks and investment funds in taking losses on their Greek bonds may also influence the central bank’s bond-buying decisions.

“The market would like the ECB to be involved (in the Greek debt relief deal) as it has been seen as senior claimant and so if it too took losses that view would no longer exist,” Wall said.

“What last week’s numbers perhaps show is that if the ECB has to absorb losses then perhaps it would be less inclined to buy bonds under its Securities Markets Programme, so maybe the market should be careful what it wishes for.”

The ECB and the 17 euro zone national central banks buy the bonds under what the ECB calls its Securities Markets Programme (SMP). European laws forbid it buying the bonds direct from governments but it gets round the restriction by buying them from banks and other investors on the open market.

It reactivated the programme last August after a four-month break when Italy and Spain, two of the euro zone’s biggest economies, began to get dragged into the eye of the debt crisis. Since then it has spent around 140 billion euros.

The amounts bought are reported by the bank every week but take two to three days to settle, meaning that when it is buying, the figures do not necessarily give a full picture.

It doesn’t give a country-by-country breakdown of its purchases either, but euro zone sources say it has bought around 40 billion euros of Greek debt and has concentrated largely on Italian and Spanish debt since the August restart.

As usual, the ECB will hold a ‘sterilisation’ operation on Tuesday to neutralise the inflationary pressure the bond buys create, a move it does by getting banks to put down 7-day deposits equalling what it has spent in total on bonds.

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The European Stability Mechanism, which will have a lending capacity of 500 billion euros, will take over from the European Financial Stability Facility, a temporary mechanism that has so far been used to bail out Ireland and Portugal.

“There is a deal but the treaty will be signed at a later stage,” one EU official said. Two other EU officials confirmed the news.

The ESM was originally expected to come into force in July 2013, but Germany pushed for an earlier introduction so that a more stable, permanent fund with paid-in capital could be set up, building a stronger firewall against the debt crisis.

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The idea, floated by Berlin, to strip the government in Athens of its sovereignty and give the power to make decisions on finances to a special EU commissioner, opened up clear fault-lines both within and outside the eurozone.

It could ultimately place in doubt Greece’s second bailout, agreed in October but bogged down amid a series of new conditions.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos arrived around half an hour before the European Union’s first summit of the year began shortly after 1400 GMT.

Merkel preferred not to make a big deal of plans circulated to finance ministry officials on Friday.

Without pulling back on the subject, she said the debate should now be about “how Europe can help Greece accomplish the tasks given to it.”

Papademos then walked through the leaders’ entrance without saying a word.

But the proposal — termed “the product of a sick imagination” by a Greek minister on Saturday after the plan was leaked — was slammed by Luxembourg Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker.

“I am strongly against the idea of imposing a commissioner with that mission only to Greece. That’s not acceptable,” said Juncker, who chairs the key grouping of eurozone finance ministers.

Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann also said the German proposal “doesn’t achieve anything and it goes in the wrong direction.”

However, the German plan drew what looked like solid if cautious support from Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt.

“They are not delivering on reforms,” he said of Greece and EU frustration with broken promises.

“Which is why we are having this discussion,” he said.

“I can understand that.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte would not comment on “another country’s” proposal, but echoed that Greece can not expect to receive bailout aid without making sacrifices.

“Greece must also honour the commitments it has made with us,” he said.

Greece has been promised a second bailout of 130 million euros ($171 million).

But at the weekend, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told the Wall Street Journal that “unless Greece implements the necessary decisions and doesn’t just announce them … there’s no amount of money that can solve the problem.”

With the country buried under a mountain of debt, Greece is seeking to wrap up a deal with private investors that have been asked to take a “haircut” worth about half the 200 billion euros owed to them.

The EU had wanted to use its New Year gathering to send out a message of optimism.

EU President Herman Van Rompuy said on Twitter that Monday’s talks, held amid a general strike over EU-ordered austerity for host country Belgium, would open up a “path to hope.”

Later, leaders were to agree a German-driven pact to toughen fiscal discipline, despite Polish demands revealing new tensions.

They could point to an improved economic confidence survey and another successful debt auction for Italy.

But stocks slid awaiting news on Greece, and Spain plunged quicker into what Brussels deems a “moderate” recession looming large over Europe.

Leaders, some facing imminent re-election campaigning, must contend with an unemployment rate averaging 10 percent across the 17-nation eurozone.

Ideas include lowering the tax burden on employers to get more people hired, and giving all youths guaranteed options in work, training or study.

Britain opted out of the new “fiscal compact” in December, and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Monday that Warsaw is thinking again.

“We will not accept it in its present form,” said Tusk, who wants non-euro governments to be given a bigger say in eurozone economic governance, which France rejects.

A discussion about whether to increase the size of a new permanent rescue fund from July, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM), is to wait until March.

This new “firewall” is planned to have firepower worth 500 billion euros, but may be raised to 750 billion euros.

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