Eurozone leaders gathered on Thursday for an emergency summit, racing for a deal on new aid to Greece to prevent the crisis from spreading to other larger economies within the bloc.

President of European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso arrives at the European Council building in Brussels, capital of Belgium, July 21, 2011. Top eurozone leaders held a summit on Thursday to outline a second bail-out for debt-ridden Greece. (Xinhua/Yu Yang)

"I expect that we will be able to seal a new Greece program. That is an important signal. And with this programme we want to grasp the problems by their root," Merkel said.

Earlier on Thursday morning, Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy reached a deal on the new aid program to Athens after seven-hours of discussion. But details of the deal were kept secret so as not to annoy other eurozone leaders at the summit.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte insisted that the private sector will be involved in the new bailout package after he arrived for the talks.

"For the Netherlands it is very important that if we are ready to give extra money to Greece, to give guarantees, that the private sector is involved," he said.

There are several options considered by the leaders, but President of the Eurogroup Jean-Claude Juncker downplayed the possibility of a new levy on the banking sector, saying "I don't think that there will be an agreement on that".

Juncker stressed the urgent need to reach a deal on Greece at the summit, but said that everything should be done to avoid a selective default on Greek debt.

"We need to articulate an overall solution today, though technical work will need to be done afterwards by the Eurogroup in a way that we will not have to meet every two weeks to add new elements," Juncker said.

Another option circulated before the summit includes a debt buyback guaranteed by collateral from the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), and financed by a new EFSF loan. The leaders are also expected to discuss cutting interest rates of the loans to Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

On the eve of the summit, President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso appealed to leaders of the 17-member bloc to agree on a comprehensive package of measures to prevent spill-over of the crisis to Spain and Italy.

VietNamNet/Xinhuanet