Brussels- European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso on Tuesday called on all of the European Union's 27 leaders to endorse a wide-ranging financial rescue plan approved in Paris on Sunday by the 15 countries that share the euro.

"I am glad that there is now a consensus on the necessity and on the substance of a coherent effort," Barroso said. "I expect confirmation and strengthening of this coherent effort by the European Council."

EU leaders are due to meet in Brussels on Wednesday and Thursday for a regular autumn summit whose content will largely be devoted to the credit crunch.

Discussions will focus on the outcome of the Paris meeting, in which eurozone leaders endorsed British-style measures to guarantee interbank loans.

The reluctance of banks to lend out their money is at the heart of the current financial crisis, which is in turn threatening to plunge European economies into recession.

Eurozone governments have also agreed to guarantee at least 50,000 euros (68,500 dollars) of their citizens' bank deposits and to bail out financial insitutions through partial nationalizations.

The combined potential cost of such measures for the EU as a whole has been estimated at almost 2,000 billion euros. But officials in Brussels note that this figure includes a significant amount of bank guarantees that may never be needed.

Speaking ahead of this week's EU summit, Barroso also backed calls by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to hold an international conference to reform the global finance system.

"An urgent priority now must be to further deepen coordination at international level, and specifically with the USA," Barroso said. (dpa)