Mr. Hollande has also pledged to revisit the European pact for greater fiscal discipline and convergence, something he repeated in an interview on Wednesday.

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Fiscal discipline makes it easier for the European Central Bank to step in and buy bonds.

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The hope seems to be that tough talk on fiscal discipline will be enough to persuade the European Central Bank that it should step in more boldly.

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Ms. Merkel, mindful of popular resistance domestically, made it clear that the demand for fiscal discipline embodied in a new pact for European Union countries was non-negotiable.

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Nervousness about European debt weighed on stocks, as European leaders gathered in Brussels amid talk of requirements for greater fiscal discipline among members.

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Further, despite a great deal of debate by European leaders, there remains a lack of clarity about the ways in which the European Union will introduce and enforce new rules to ensure national fiscal discipline.

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Worse, he says he wants to renegotiate the European Union's fiscal compact, a hard-won treaty on budgetary discipline.

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The objective of the SGP was for strict fiscal discipline to be maintained and enforced in the process of European Monetary Union (EMU).

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