Eurozone four leaders agree economic growth package

ROME – The leaders of the euro currency bloc’s four biggest economies have, for the first time, agreed to support new spending to try to boost the region’s stagnant economic fortunes.

After meeting in Rome, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Francois Hollande, Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti and Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy agreed Friday to push for approval of a $163 billion package to promote economic growth when a European summit is held next week in Brussels.

Until now, Ms. Merkel had been single-minded in advocating austerity spending cuts as the path to ending the currency union’s debt crisis. But she has been under increasing pressure from the French president, U.S. President Barack Obama and others to also promote economic advances, to calm world financial markets and limit the impact of the eurozone crisis on the global economy.

The German leader called the new growth package