Monti set for hard bargaining with Merkel at Euro summit Italian premier says won't back Tobin tax unless Germans budge

(ANSA) - Rome, June 28 - Italian Premier Mario Monti and French President Francois Hollande look set for some hard bargaining with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at a crunch European Union summit on the eurozone crisis that starts in Brussels later on Thursday.The French and Italian leaders have big differences with Merkel about how to go forward after she ruled out debt-pooling measures such as the issuance of common euro bonds to ease pressure on countries like Spain and Italy, which have seen their borrowing costs soar.On Wednesday Monti said Italy would not back Germany's proposal for a Tobin tax on international financial transactions unless Merkel agreed to allow EU rescue funds to be used to buy the bonds of countries that are seeing their borrowing costs climb even though they are taking measures to put their economic houses in order. But German government sources in Brussels said on Thursday that Berlin's position had not changed after Monti's ultimatum and added that the "panic" about the interest rates on Italian and Spanish state bonds was "exaggerated".