European Commission president José Manuel Barroso today declared that it is “now or never” for agreement on the plans to reform Europe’s financial supervisory system that were proposed by Jacques de Larosière in February, shortly before the press conference at which he was speaking was disrupted and the building evacuated following a water leak.

Barroso was speaking this morning at the EC's Berlaymont building in Brussels, which houses the commission's press area, when the precautionary evacuation began, following what the commission described in a statement as "a serious leak of hot water that occurred during works on a water pipe" and left a technician hospitalised with serious burns.