European leaders are searching for a common response to the spreading financial crisis which has ricocheted across the Atlantic to their shores.

It what could be a complex exercise, 15 European leaders of countries using the euro currency are meeting Sunday afternoon in Paris.

The session follows a meeting in Washington Saturday that drew the world’s financial leaders and an appear from President Bush for a global approach to the crisis. So far, European countries have reacted diversely on a case by case basis.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said Saturday that they were opposed to the creation of a common financial rescue fund for Europe similar to the U.S. approved plan.

“The crisis demands extremely rapid responses” and a “European fund would pose gigantic problems” in decision-making among so many nations, Sarkozy said at a news conference with Merkel.

Merkel said that a “common tool box” could be Sunday’s outcome. Individual countries “could use these tools to respond to (its) particular situation,” she said after a meeting outside Paris with Sarkozy.

“We need a common approach in Europe, but we must be able to adapt to each national situation in a flexible way,” she said.

Both Merkel and Sarkozy stressed that coordination is vital to taming the crisis, and putting an end to the go-it-alone approach that has predominated thus far in Europe.

Decisions made by the euro-zone would likely be later enlarged to include other members of the 27-nation EU.