Eurozone

Croatia plans to raise cash by selling an additional billion euro of state bonds.

The economy ministry has commissioned four top banks - Barclays, Erste Group, JPMorgan and UniCredit - to arrange the issue of this new edition of euro bonds.

The Minister of Economy, Boris Lalovac, first announced this new edition of euro state bonds back in December.

France sees itself as a link between Greece and its eurozone peers, Finance Minister Michel Sapin told an Austrian paper, reiterating his call for economic policies that can foster growth and boost ultra-low inflation in Europe.

By John Geddie

German borrowing costs out to seven years fell below zero for the first time and Italian yields dipped ahead of an auction on Thursday in further signs of frantic investor demand for euro zone government debt.

Balkan countries including Bulgaria "remain highly vulnerable to the threat of Greek financial collapse" due to their strong banking and trade links with Greece, Reuters said.

Even though Greece seems for now to have won a four-month extension of its bailout programme, the danger of a potential exit of the country from the euro still exists, the newswire said.

By Mark Gilbert

The European Commission has decided to start the macroeconomic imbalance procedure (MIP) for Romania (and Portugal), two of the 16 countries identified in November 2014 as recording economic imbalances, the EC announced on Wednesday in a press release.

Photo credit: (c) ZHOU LEI / XINHUA

Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis admitted on Wednesday that Greece may face difficulties in finding the money to pay its obligations to the International Monetary Fund and the European Central Bank over the next few months.

By Lefteris Papadimas & Stephen Brown

Greece admitted on Wednesday it will struggle to make debt repayments to the IMF and the European Central Bank this year as Germany?s finance minister voiced open doubts about Athens?s trustworthiness.

By Marcus Bensasson & Nikos Chrysoloras

One phrase echoed from Brussels to Frankfurt and Washington as Greece?s creditors examined and then waved through the country?s new economic policies: ?starting point.?