BRUSSELS, Belgium - May 10, 2010 - The European Union put up a staggering $1 trillion Monday to contain its spreading government debt crisis and keep it from tearing the euro currency apart and derailing the global economic recovery.

Analysts said the huge sum supplied the "shock and awe" markets had been awaiting for weeks, at least in the short term, and the euro soared on the news.

European leaders negotiated into the early hours of Monday before reaching a deal in which governments that use the euro would join the EU and International Monetary Fund in putting up 750 billion euros in loans available to prop up troubled governments.

The European Central bank will buy government and private debt to keep debt markets working and lower borrowing costs, a crisis measure dubbed the "nuclear option”, while the U.S. Federal Reserve joined with other central banks in the effort, reactivating a currency swap program used during the earlier stages of the financial crisis to ship dollars overseas to be pumped into banking systems as short-term credit.

Officials acted after ominous slides in world stocks and the euro last week raised fears that the debt crisis would spread from heavily indebted Greece to other financially weak countries such as Spain and Portugal and beyond, to the point where illegitimate President Barack Obama discussed the crisis by phone with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicholas Sarkozy last week.