BRUSSELS/BERLIN (Reuters) – Euro zone countries continued to grapple with the thorny issue of involving the private sector in tackling Greece’s debt pile as they prepared for a meeting to decide support for the country next week.

“The principle of having a euro chiefs’ meeting is accepted by the main players, including Germany,” said one EU diplomat, adding that it was likely to happen next week despite earlier signals from Berlin that there was no rush to finalize a second package of aid.

BRUSSELS/BERLIN (Reuters) – Euro zone plans for a leaders’ summit on a second Greek rescue were thrown into doubt by Germany on Wednesday, raising fears markets may exploit the policy vacuum with a new onslaught on the bloc’s high debtors.

Berlin stuck to its line that Greece was funded until September so there was no rush. “There are no concrete plans for a special summit,” a German government spokeswoman said.

FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) – German firms, lagging European peers in appointing women to board posts, have stepped up their efforts in hopes of averting legal quotas as a campaign to smash the glass ceiling gains momentum.

Deutsche Telekom (DTEGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) and SolarWorld (SWVG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) each appointed female executives last week, in moves noteworthy for a country where no woman was appointed to the management board of a blue-chip firm until 2008.

BERLIN/FRANKFURT, July 1 (Reuters) – German lawmakers
dismissed on Friday a pledge by banks to contribute 3.2 billion
euros to a new Greek aid package, saying Berlin had failed to
deliver on its promise of a substantial private-sector role.

“This is pure symbolism,” Frank Schaeffler, a member of the
ruling Free Democrats (FDP) told Reuters. “The financial sector
has once again prevailed, and in reality this is a placebo.”

BERLIN (Reuters) – German retail sales fell at their fastest rate in four years in May, pointing to a growth slowdown in Europe’s largest economy, though economists said an E.coli outbreak that led to a drop in food sales was a major factor.

Retail sales fell 2.8 percent in real terms on a monthly basis, preliminary data from the Federal Statistics Office showed, missing a Reuters forecast for a 0.5 percent gain.

BERLIN, April 4 (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel is
facing a turbulent period after a series of election routs, a
bitter internal party battle over nuclear energy and a power
struggle that is convulsing her junior coalition partner.

The euro zone debt crisis is also straining her centre-right
government, which has been heavily criticised in the media and
by the opposition for zig-zag policies, and continues to fall in
voter surveys after 16 months in power.

BERLIN, April 4 (Reuters) – Chancellor Angela Merkel is
facing a turbulent period after a series of election routs, a
bitter internal party battle over nuclear energy and a power
struggle that is convulsing her junior coalition partner.

The euro zone debt crisis is also straining her centre-right
government, which has been heavily criticised in the media and
by the opposition for zig-zag policies, and continues to fall in
voter surveys after 16 months in power.

FRANKFURT/BERLIN (Reuters) – The gunman who shot dead two U.S. airmen in a U.S. Army bus at Frankfurt airport on Wednesday was probably a lone operator motivated by radical Islamist beliefs, German authorities said Thursday.

German media had reported the man could be part of a terrorist cell, raising the potential threat of further attacks on U.S. targets in Germany.

BERLIN, March 2 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel
said on Wednesday she welcomed euro zone weakling Portugal’s
economic reforms but they needed to continue and go further.

Portugal is widely seen as the euro state most likely to
need an EU/IMF bailout, following in the footsteps of Greece and
Ireland, because it faces unsustainable market borrowing costs
of more than 7 percent.

BERLIN, March 2 (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel
said on Wednesday a European Union document laying out options
for a deal on safeguarding euro zone states’ public finances was
a “good basis” for discussions at a March 11 summit in Brussels.

At a joint news conference with Austrian Chancellor Werner
Faymann, Merkel said some of Germany and France’s initial
proposals, such as the scrapping of wage indexation, had been
weakened in the EU document but were not off the table.