LOS CABOS, Mexico (Reuters) – In the mid-1990s, Helmut Kohl was asked how he ever hoped to convince Germans to give up the deutsche mark for a nebulous new currency that was later dubbed the euro.

“It will happen,” the chancellor shot back. “The Germans accept strong leadership.”

LOS CABOS, Mexico (Reuters) – In the mid-1990s, Helmut Kohl was asked how he ever hoped to convince Germans to give up the deutsche mark for a nebulous new currency that was later dubbed the euro.

“It will happen,” the chancellor shot back. “The Germans accept strong leadership.”

LOS CABOS, Mexico, June 19 (Reuters) – Italy put forward a
proposal at a G20 summit in Mexico on Tuesday for the euro
zone’s rescue funds to start buying the debt of distressed
European countries, and the idea is expected to be discussed at
a meeting of leaders in Rome on Friday.

The Italian proposal foresees using the EU’s rescue funds,
known as the EFSF and the ESM, to buy bonds of countries such as
Spain and Italy in the secondary market to help bring down bond
yields and lower refinancing costs.

LOS CABOS, Mexico (Reuters) – Europe won support from world leaders on Tuesday for an ambitious but slow-moving overhaul of the euro zone, even as pressure built in financial markets for quicker solutions to its debt crisis that threatens the world economy.

Europe told a Group of 20 summit it intends to work on concrete steps to integrate its banking sectors, a major step long pressed by the United States and other nations to break the cycle of debt-laden countries bailing out their troubled banks which only pushes governments ever deeper into debt.

LOS CABOS, Mexico (Reuters) – Europe won support from world leaders on Tuesday for an ambitious but slow-moving overhaul of the euro zone, even as pressure built in financial markets for quicker solutions to its debt crisis that threatens the world economy.

Europe told a Group of 20 summit it intends to work on concrete steps to integrate its banking sectors, a major step long pressed by the United States and other nations to break the cycle of debt-laden countries bailing out their troubled banks which only pushes governments ever deeper into debt.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel rebuffed pressure on Thursday for Germany, Europe’s most powerful economy, to underwrite debt or guarantee bank deposits in the euro zone as Spain’s soaring borrowing costs raised new alarm.

Spain’s 10-year bond yield hit a euro lifetime high above 7 percent – a danger level above which Greece, Ireland and Portugal were driven to seek international rescues – despite last weekend’s euro zone agreement to lend Madrid up to 100 billion euros to recapitalise ailing banks.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel rebuffed pressure on Thursday for Germany, Europe’s most powerful economy, to underwrite debt or guarantee bank deposits in the euro zone as Spain’s soaring borrowing costs raised new alarm.

Spain’s 10-year bond yield hit a euro lifetime high of 7 percent – a staging post above which Greece, Ireland and Portugal were driven to seek international rescues – despite last weekend’s euro zone agreement to lend Madrid up to 100 billion euros ($125 billion) to recapitalize ailing banks.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s Angela Merkel rejected any quick solution to the euro zone’s deepening debt crisis as counterproductive on Thursday, saying Europe must instead pursue the “Herculean task” of closer political integration.

Speaking to parliament before a meeting of Group of 20 leaders in Los Cabos, Mexico, next week, the chancellor reiterated her opposition to “miracle solutions” like joint euro zone bonds and a Europe-wide deposit guarantee scheme for banks, saying Germany could only go so far.

BERLIN (Reuters) – In early October of last year, German Economy Minister Philipp Roesler landed in Athens on a plane packed full of corporate executives, carrying a message of hope.

Germany and its leading firms, the young minister told Greek leaders, stood ready to help Greece overcome the debt crisis that had plunged its economy into recession and pushed it to the brink of its second EU/IMF rescue in little more than a year.