Euro zone ministers agreed on Tuesday to ramp up the firepower of their rescue fund but couldn't say by how much and raised the possibility of asking the IMF for more help after Italy's borrowing costs hit a Euro lifetime high of nearly 8%.
Global markets fell Wednesday after more evidence emerged that the global economy is faltering fast and that the Euro zone is heading for a recession as the debt crisis spreads to the bigger economies like Italy and Spain.
Moody’s ratings agency decided on Thursday to surprisingly downgrade the rating of ten German public-sector banks. This is the first time Europe’s largest economy in the region, which keeps the Euro zone afloat, is hit.
Mario Monti formed a new technocrat government in Italy Wednesday to tackle a major debt crisis threatening the entire Euro zone and said he hoped it would placate financial markets.
The European Central Bank stepped in on Wednesday to stem an accelerating sell-off of Euro zone government bonds, traders said, after the United States called for more decisive action to halt a spreading sovereign debt crisis.
Greece and private bondholders begun working on a deal to halve its public debt, a key pillar of a bailout plan to save the country from bankruptcy and ejection from the euro zone, sources said.
Greece named banker Lucas Papademos as head of a new crisis government on Thursday, ending the country's chaotic search for a leader to save it from default, bankruptcy and expulsion from the Euro zone.
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Tuesday he would resign after suffering a humiliating setback in parliament that showed a party revolt had stripped him of a majority.
Major emerging economies are ready to provide financial help to the Euro zone via the International Monetary Fund but in return want commitments to reform the IMF to be implemented, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Monday.
Greece will receive no more European bailout aid until it has put an end to uncertainty and agreed to meet its commitments to the Euro zone, the leaders of France and Germany said on Wednesday.