European officials propose sweeping changes for euro zone; summit on Thursday Given the complexity of the European Union, the officials warned that such major alterations would need to unfold over the course of the next decade, with some of them likely to face stiff opposition. Investors are bracing for the likelihood that the two-day summit might fail to produce an immediate resolution to the region's 2 1/2-year-old debt crisis. "I don't think we'll get anything that sweeping this week," said Sebastian Dullien, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin. There had been expectations of a breakthrough, but Germany is not ready to take the steps that are necessary, or at least its conditions are strict enough that the other countries are not yet prepared to meet them. The report issued by European Council President Herman Van Rompuy, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker and European Central Bank President Mario Draghi contained some fairly radical thinking of how to reshape the euro zone. At least one of the measures - a Europe-wide banking union - could begin to materialize in the short term. European leaders appear to be moving toward agreement establishing a regional banking regulator that could backstop or override national governments in the 17-nation euro zone. Still, questions remain over how quickly such a union could be up and running, and whether it would end up being sweeping enough to restore long-term confidence in the euro. Finance ministers from Europe's four biggest economies were set to meet in Paris later Tuesday to discuss the summit agenda, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande poised to meet there Wednesday night. There was no indication that Merkel had dropped her opposition to a number of short-term measures being floated by Spain and Italy and aimed at curbing the investor panic in those nations, where government borrowing costs have soared to dangerous levels. In fact, as has happened repeatedly at past summits here, European leaders appear divided by competing visions of crisis management, with mighty Germany calling for a methodical pace focused on big fixes to the euro and opposing the quick remedies being proposed by its harder-hit neighbors. The lingering differences left diminishing hopes of a short-term resolution of the crisis even as the region's troubles appeared to be escalating. Spain on Monday formally requested a bailout to aid its ailing banks, while tiny Cyprus also announced it would become the fifth country in Europe to seek a lifeline. One of the most tangible agreements shaping up ahead of the summit was a French plan to pump $162 billion in European Union funds into growth and jobs. But analysts were already cautioning the money could be spent over a number of years and spread so thinly across the region that its impact in hard-hit countries like Greece, Italy and Spain could be limited. "The money for growth is nice, but it is not going to fix the euro-zone crisis," said Jean Pisani Ferry, director of Bruegel, the Brussels-based think tank. The proposals released Tuesday appeared to try and reflect the will of all E.U. nations, with the Germans being offered something they especially wanted - the ability of a central European authority to rewrite the budgets of nations that overspend and over-borrow. Meanwhile, France, Italy and Spain could take heart in promises that the region as a whole could consider the issuing of collective debt. Such "eurobonds" would see the might of the German taxpayer stand behind the weaker nations that share the euro, making such bonds less risky and bringing down borrowing costs. But European leaders still must address the key questions of which measures to endorse, and how quickly such major changes could come into place. Analysts warned that several of the ideas required changes to existing treaties or even the drafting of entirely new ones. And the Germans were quick to say the report issued Tuesday too bluntly called for collective debt without going into enough detail on how to curtail excessive spending in the euro zone. "Parts of it read like a wish list," German Deputy Foreign Minister Michael Link told reporters before a meeting in Luxembourg, according to Bloomberg. The report is important, but it isn't a decision.