Eurozone

European Union leaders said on Thursday night that they will do whatever is necessary to protect citizens from the Covid-19 pandemic but failed to agree on specific measures.

Greek Premier Kyriakos Mitsotakis told EU leaders that the measures announced so far to support economies hit by the new coronavirus do not go far enough and insisted on a proposal to issue joint debt to help finance a recovery, government sources said.

European Union leaders failed to agree on Thursday on the scale of support for their economies battered by the coronavirus, but gave themselves two more weeks to work out details in a dispute between the ailing south and the fiscally conservative north.

Greece hopes EU countries will agree on a common debt instrument to raise funds to support economies in combating the new coronavirus, government spokesman Stelios Petsas said in a press briefing Thursday.

"Obviously, the state of the real economy has deteriorated and continues to deteriorate. This is why we are reevaluating the situation on a daily basis," he said.

Southern European government bonds rallied on Thursday, with yields on Italian and Greek debt tumbling after the European Central Bank announced the terms of its 750 billion euro bond-buying scheme to limit the impact of the coronavirus crisis.

Leaders of nine EU countries including France, Italy and Spain called on the bloc to agree on a "common debt instrument" to raise funds to support the health industry in combating the coronavirus, as well as the broader economies, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

Eurozone finance ministers will discuss European Commission proposals to make use of the bloc's bailout fund to fight the economic impact of the coronavirus pandemic in a teleconference on Tuesday evening, the Commission said.

European Union finance ministers formally endorsed on Monday the suspension of EU limits on governments borrowing to give the 27 EU countries a free hand in fighting the disastrous effects of the coronavirus epidemic on the economy.

Greece will carry out fewer bond issues in 2020, Citigroup has predicted, pointing to the market unrest generated by the new coronavirus, though the US group considers a credit-positive development that Greek bonds have been included in the European Central Bank's extraordinary bond-buying program.

The recent health crisis is dampening hopes of a credit rating upgrade for Greece. According to Capital Economics economist Melanie Debono, "it is now highly unlikely that any government will be upgraded by the credit rating agencies in the near future, given that the world is on the verge of a deep recession. Greece is not immune from this."