European leaders bid to close a chapter in the debt crisis Monday with a pact on balanced budgets, but the eurozone Achilles heel that is Greece threatens to distract them once again

European leaders bid to close a chapter in the debt crisis Monday with a pact on balanced budgets, but the eurozone Achilles heel that is Greece threatens to distract them once again.
  
Heads of state and government from the 27 European Union states gather from 3:00 pm (1400 GMT) in Brussels, with Belgium on strike against further spending cuts envisaged after yet another credit rating downgrade.
  
For once, there is no need for "crisis" adjectives -- the rhetoric on Europe has changed much in the two years since the scale of the problems in Athens threw the eurozone into political chaos.
  
"Imminent, very, very soon," was how senior EU sources described on Sunday night the prospect of agreement on the conditions required to underpin a fresh willingness to fix a new international bailout.
  
At the summit, leaders want to focus on new treaty obligations for minimal deficits -- in theory, ending ever-rising government debt -- plus the legal framework for a rescue fund dubbed a financial "firewall."
  
Bit by bit, governments are winning over the markets -- but for every firm step taken, there remain doubts about the logic of keeping Greece on board: a weekend German call for Athens to surrender budgetary sovereignty a case in point.
  
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble told Monday's Wall Street Journal that only radical reforms in Greece could unlock a second bailout first promised in October but since subservient to anticipated European recession.
  
First on Monday's menu is final agreement on a treaty designed to reinforce fiscal discipline.