Europe’s leaders came under severe pressure from the rest of the world to act decisively to resolve the eurozone crisis at the start of the Group of 20 summit, adding to tensions ahead of a meeting unlikely to agree clear steps to ease the crisis.

As leaders of the most powerful countries gathered in Los Cabos, Mexico, some European leaders hit back at criticism of their response, saying that Europe was not the cause of the original crisis in 2008 and was making continuous progress in dealing with new issues.

Jose Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, was in defiant mood when questioned on the criticism of Europe by other G20 countries, some of which - he noted - were not democracies: “We are not coming here to take lessons on democracy and how to handle our economy. We are not complacent about our difficulties.”