Britain says it will not back European bailout fund

Britain said on Sunday that it will refuse to underwrite a European Union bailout fund worth some 60 billion euros that finance ministers want to agree at emergency talks in Brussels.

"We wouldn't participate in a European bailout fund," a British diplomat told AFP of moves for all 27 EU member states to guarantee borrowings destined to bailout troubled economies in the crisis-hit 16-nation eurozone.

Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling landed in Brussels shortly before the European Commission was due to finalise plans to set up a mini-European version of the International Monetary Fund to aid debt-saddled euro nations. Talks between finance ministers of the full EU, of which Britain and eastern industrial powerhouse Poland are the main non-euro states, are due to start at 3:00 pm (1300 GMT), after eurozone leaders ordered a financial firewall to be agreed by Sunday night.

For more: AFP: Britain says it will not back European bailout fund