Czech PM: EU to support eastern Europe if needed

The EU will give struggling eastern European countries support if needed, although the bloc’s leaders have decided against a regional aid plan, Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek said on Sunday. Speaking after a summit of EU leaders in Brussels chaired by the Czech EU presidency, Mr Topolánek told journalists that he thought it was perfectly clear that the European Union was ‘not going to leave anybody in the lurch’. The one-day emergency summit was called by Mr Topolánek last month to tackle the economic and financial crisis. At the summit, EU leaders were hoping to patch over their differences and avoid a crisis of confidence in the bloc’s single market.