The eurozone's economic powers are struggling to agree on a new debt crisis plan to present at an emergency EU summit, with Germany downplaying calls from France and Brussels for a big announcement that could boost market confidence and contain the turmoil.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy was flying to Berlin on Wednesday afternoon in an apparent last-minute bid to strike a deal with Chancellor Angela Merkel on some kind of new aid package for Greece.

The stakes are high. Markets have been extremely volatile over the past weeks on fears the crisis might spread to larger countries like Italy. The International Monetary Fund warned that leaders must do more to keep debt troubles from poisoning the entire continent's economy.

Germany and France will discuss "all the options on the table and agree, if possible, on a joint position," said Merkel's spokesman, Steffen Seibert. Germany is optimistic that Thursday's summit will agree on "a good solution that will move us forward," he added.

But he reiterated Merkel's stance that the talks will not yield a "spectacular solution" that fixes Greece's problems quickly, but will be merely a stepping stone in a longer process. Merkel had said there would be no decision to restructure Greece's debt or create eurobonds that link debt across countries.