Economy of Europe

The price for natural gas provided to household consumers will drop by an average 3.9 per cent starting on Wednesday.

Photo credit: (c) Cristian NISTOR / AGERPRES ARCHIVE

The head of Europe?s banking supervisory authority, Daniele Nouy, on Tuesday called for a rapid solution to Greece?s debt problems in order to reduce the uncertainty for the banking sector.

Nouy, who heads the Single Supervisory Mechanism (SSM), told a hearing before the European Parliament that the Greek banks have ?a much better solvency situation than in previous years.?

With the omens from the negotiations in Brussels being far from positive on Tuesday, the benchmark of the Greek stock market ended the month of March with losses of 11.93 percent, while banks declined by 24.69 percent. The banks index lost 41.53 percent in the first quarter of the year.

A luxury official car issued to Mu?la Metropolitan Municipality Mayor Osman Gürün, a member of the main opposition Republican People?s Party (CHP), has become a matter of public debate across the country.

CHP provincial head Mürsel Alban said the luxury official car, which is worth about 770,000 Turkish Liras, was purchased through a bank promotion.

A Croatian NGO set up to lobby for the rights of people with loans in Swiss francs on Monday announced street protests in April while calling for the resignation of the national bank chief.

The Association Franak said that the governor of Croatian national bank, HNB, Boris Vujcic, should step down, Ivan Kontrec, from the Association, told a press conference.

BELGRADE - The Serbian dinar went up by 0.2 percent against the euro on Tuesday, so the official middle exchange rate is 1EUR = RSD 120.2153, the National Bank of Serbia has stated.

The value of the national currency against the eurozone currency went up by 0.1 percent compared to a month ago, while it declined by 4.0 percent compared to a year ago.

Hellenic Post (ELTA) released on Monday a series of collectible stamps, dedicated to railway transport in Greece.

The series, titled "Greece's Railways," depicts four of the most emblematic locomotives used for about a century until the 1970's.

The images have been designed by painter-engraver Myrsini Vardopoulou.

Martin Jaeger, the spokesman of the German Finance ministry, said on Monday that the Greek Government has not submitted yet a detailed list with its proposals for future reforms in the country.

Stocks were split down the middle between gainers and losers on Friday as the market nervously observes the simmering tensions between the government and the eurozone, with the outcome of negotiations being all the more uncertain. The benchmark added half a percentage point to bring its weekly gains to 3.26 percent.

In his interview to German magazine “Focus”, the chief of Bundesbank Jens Weidmann stresses that the Greek government has already lost to certain extend lenders trust while he further expressed his opinion that time is running out in order to find a solution on the Greek issue.