WASHINGTON — The world’s economic powers struggled Friday to get on top of a European debt crisis that is threatening to dump the global economy back into recession.
Officials, gathered for three days of discussion, pledged to push forward to fulfill the goals of a program in which the Group of 20 major economies promised stronger cooperation to jump-start global growth and help Greece avoid a destabilizing default.
But private economists questioned whether the latest action plan unveiled by the G-20 countries Thursday night went far enough to deal with market concerns that a Greek default is a virtual certainty that threatens to destabilize other highly indebted European countries.
All of the discussions about European debt were occurring around the annual meetings of the 187-nation International Monetary Fund and its sister lending agency, the World Bank.
In advance of those talks, the G-20 finance officials, including Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, pledged a bold effort to deal with the debt crisis and encouraged Europe to move quickly to implement its promises to help Greece.
The G-20 statement had little impact on the market’s sour mood, with stocks continuing to tumble in Asia and Europe.
Wall Street, which saw the Dow Jones industrial average plunge 391 points Thursday, initially headed lower Friday but then stabilized, closing up 0.3 percent.
