European debt crisis

By Ian Wishart

Government debt in the euro area surged to the highest levels since the introduction of the single currency, underscoring the challenges still confronting the 19-nation bloc as it wrestles with Greece over new aid payments.

Greek banks may soon run out of collateral to access European Central Bank refinancing unless Athens reaches an agreement with the European Union and International Monetary Fund on economic reforms, France's central bank chief said.

Greece's Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that if Greece were to leave the euro zone, there would be an inevitable contagion effect.

"Anyone who toys with the idea of cutting off bits of the euro zone hoping the rest will survive is playing with fire,» he told La Sexta, a Spanish TV channel, in an interview recorded 10 days ago.

Renowned economist and columnist Paul Krugman who won the Nobel prize for Economics in 2008 stressed once again the need to end to strict austerity policies imposed on Greece, during a press conference in Athens on Saturday.

By Yiannis Papadoyiannis

Neighboring countries have effectively quarantined Greece in a bid to minimize the consequences on their credit systems in case of a Greek ?accident.?

Rating agency Standard and Poor?s downgraded Greece?s credit grade further into junk status on Wednesday, saying the country?s financial commitments would be unsustainable without ?deep economic reform or further relief.?

An exit from the eurozone would be ?very costly? for Greece, International Monetary Fund chief economist Olivier Blanchard has warned.

?We are working with the Greeks to try and find an acceptable compromise, a program which makes sense to both sides,? Blanchard told Bloomberg on the sidelines of the World Bank-IMF 2015 Spring Meetings in Washington Tuesday.

IMF: Recession to continue throughout 2015

WASHINGTON -- According to latest IMF projections, 2015 will be another recession year for Serbia, with negative growth of -0.5 percent.

2016 should see "recovery" and 1.5 percent growth, according to this.

WASHINGTON - According to latest projections by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), 2015 will be another recession year for Serbia, with a real GDP growth of a negative -0.5 percent, and recovery, with a positive, 1.5 percent growth, should come in 2016.

By Paul Taylor

Even if it survives the next three months teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, Greece may have blown its best chance of a long-term debt deal by alienating its eurozone partners when it most needed their support.