European Union governments vowed on Sunday to conquer the financial crisis and recession gripping their economies by extending help to beleaguered eastern European states on a country-by-country basis and respecting the rules of the single European market.

The fragility of the financial systems in several eastern European countries dominated an emergency summit in Brussels, where leaders of the 27-nation bloc committed themselves to “getting the real economy back on track by making the maximum possible use of the single market, which is the engine for recovery”.