Eurozone

The new Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis announced on Friday that his government was not willing to continue negotiations with the troika of international creditors.

Varoufakis made this statement during a news conference following a meeting with the President of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem in Athens, daily Kathimerini reports.

Greek banks opeerating in Bulgaria are not threatened by the policies of the anti-austerity SYRIZA party, leading banker Levon Hampartzoumian said.

Greece's radical new government is to hold its first talks with a foreign dignitary on Jan. 29, hosting the head of the European parliament a day after announcing moves to roll back austerity measures.
      

Parties in the newly elected Greek government formed by left-wing SYRIZA and right wing ANEL have agreed to firmly oppose the austerity measures regarding the country's imminent debt payments.

The coalition has reiterated its willingness to renegotiate the EUR 240 B Greek debt.

"Unrealistic to expect Greece to repay debt"

ATHENS -- It is "unrealistic to expect Greece to repay its huge debt in full," Euclid Tsakalotos, the chief economics spokesman for Syriza has told the BBC.

The euro and European shares and bonds shook off worries yesterday over Greek election winner Syriza's pledge to take on international lenders, a strong sign of confidence in the ECB's new money-printing program.

Weakness in European shares lasted only for about two hours, although the main Athens index fell and Greek bond yields rose.

The euro sank to an 11-year low on Jan. 26 and Asian equities were muted after an anti-austerity party won Greece's election, throwing its international bailout into doubt and raising fears it could leave the eurozone.
 

I always dismissed arguments that the eurozone?s time as an economic power was up, pointing out the strengths of the common currency area. But I finally realized that I have been wrong all along.

The European Central Bank (ECB) will buy EUR 60B in assets per month from March 2015 until end-September 2016 to stimulate flagging economic growth in Europe, the bank's President Mario Draghi announced on Thursday.

The European Central Bank on Thursday committed to a quantitative easing (QE) program that will see it print money to buy up 60 billion euros worth of sovereign bonds from March until the end of September next year.

The money will include some from existing programs.