STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - Following are highlights of comments by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti at a news conference following three-way talks on Thursday in the eastern French city of Strasbourg.
PRESIDENT NICOLAS SARKOZY
"We wanted to note, Germany and France, our confidence in the Italian government... We are, all three, determined to work in the same direction to support the euro.
"We are working on proposals (for treaty modifications) which have advanced a great deal. We will present them before the December 9 meeting.
"We all stated our confidence in the European Central Bank and its leaders and stated that in respect of the independence of this essential institution we must refrain from making positive or negative demands of it.
"Obviously, if the sovereign debt crisis were to keep getting worse, that would be a problem for everyone and not just for France. That's precisely why we were working on the issue.
"Germany has a history, a tradition and a culture. France has another. We're trying to understand and converge towards the same point... Mrs Merkel explains her worries to me, sometimes at length, and I tell her mine, and then, given the weight of history between our countries, we converge. I try to understand Germany's red lines and France's red lines.
"For example on institutions like the ECB our history is not the same and that's a reality. There's no point in denying it, we must try to understand and find the meeting point."
CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL
"When we take a first step towards fiscal union, for example by reinforcing the Stability and Growth Pact via automatic sanctions, it will be a step forwards but it won't be grounds for me to change the opinion I expressed yesterday."
PRIME MINISTER MARIO MONTI
"The object of balancing the budget by 2013 is not in discussion.
"There does exist a more general question which apples to the global economy and certainly for the European economy, and that is: what happens if you enter a phase of recession that is greater than expected, if, and by how much and how, public finances need to be adjusted to take account of variations in the cycle."
"Each country has its budget but it is about the ones who do not respect the Stability Pact and can in future be called to account, because we have had 60 violations of the Stability and Growth Pact, including by Germany, and these German violations were not punished, and we are paying a high prices for this now.
"This has nothing to do with my position on euro bonds. I believe they are not necessary.
"The Commission made a lot of proposals yesterday about budget discipline and we largely agree on that. I just think that euro bonds, or stability bonds, whatever you want to call them, produce a levelling of the different competitive situations which are expressed via interest rates, which gives the wrong signal, as different interest rates are an indication of where work still needs to be done.
"Regarding automatic sanctions, I think they can only be imposed via treaty changes."
(Reporting by Daniel Flynn, Catherine Bremer, Brian Love and Giselda Vagnoni)