While the summit is expected to bring few decisions, it will probably reiterate the need to set up common European bank oversight and turn on the green light for examining ideas about a European budget and reform treaties.

With the eurozone waiting for the resolution of the uncertainty surrounding possible new credit lines to Greece and Spain, the recent report by European Council President Herman van Rompuy on the deepening of European integration will serve as the basis for the debate.

The summit, to be followed by two more until the end of the year, is only expected the broach the first of four pillars in the intergeneration strategy, the banking union.

According to a source in Brussels, the ambition is to confirm the urgency to finish its starting phase - common bank oversight - by the end of the year and imply that the second phase - a joint framework for the solving of banking crises - is to follow.

Common oversight is a condition for direct capital increases from the European Stability Mechanism, with the European Commission proposing that the European Central Bank already start overseeing problematic banks on 1 January 2013. This is to be extended to systemic banks in July and to all 6,000 banks in the eurozone in 2014.

Some member states, starting with Germany, see the plan as too ambitious, while Paris supports it. Slovenia is among those in favour of quick introduction of common European bank oversight.