The majority of Germans feel the Euro currency bloc would be better off if debt-crippled Greece left it, a poll published in mass-selling newspaper Bild am Sonntag showed.
European Union ambassador in Buenos Aires Alfonso Diez Torres said that the Falklands/Malvinas issue does not figure in the foreign affairs agenda of the EU, it’s a bilateral issue and he does not see any reason to amend the Lisbon treaty to exclude the disputed South Atlantic Islands as demanded by Argentina.
United Kingdom’s Prime Minister David Cameron urged the European Union to take a “bold and decisive action” to curb the economic crisis hovering over the Euro Zone and also described the plan for a financial transaction tax as “simply madness”.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel appealed to business leaders at the World Economic Forum to give policy makers the space they need to tackle the debt crisis, pledging that Europe will pull together and restore confidence.
Greece's public sector creditors may need to participate in a restructuring of its debt if a haircut negotiated with private sector bondholders is not enough to make Athens' debt sustainable, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde said.
Standard & Poor's will likely downgrade Greece's ratings to selective default when the country concludes its debt restructuring, but that will not necessarily destroy the credibility of the European Union, an official with the ratings agency said on Tuesday.
The European Union banned imports of oil from Iran on Monday and imposed a number of other economic sanctions, joining the United States in a new round of measures aimed at deflecting Tehran’s nuclear development program.
Spain’s economy contracted in the fourth quarter and will shrink 1.5% this year, the Bank of Spain estimated, undermining government efforts to cut the budget deficit amid the second recession in two years.
The European Union considers that the new tense situation between Argentina and the UK over the Falklands/Malvinas Islands is a “bilateral issue”, however the Falklands figure under EU treaties as a British Overseas Territory, said the EU Foreign Affairs Representative spokesperson.
Greece faces an exit from Europe's common currency block unless it clinches a deal on a second 130 billion Euro bailout with its international lenders, a government spokesman said on Tuesday.