At yesterday’s one-day European summit EU leaders, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, refused to commit to any bailout of Greece. Instead, EU leaders made a general pledge to take “determined and co-ordinated action if needed” to prop up the euro. According to the Telegraph, Merkel said, “Greece is a part of the European Union and won't be left on its own, but the...

German resistance towards financial aid for Athens highlights the pressure facing Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, as Greece lobbies for European help with its fiscal difficulties

In an interview with France 24, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso dismissed Chancellor Angela Merkel’s suggestion that the EU needed a mechanism to expel member states from the euro. “I do not comment on other’s comments,” he said, but added: “What I can tell you is the position of the Commission…currently, excluding a member state from the eurozone is n...

Following a tense meeting yesterday with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou confirmed that the referendum he surprisingly announced on Monday would effectively decide on whether Greece would remain in the eurozone.

Greece targeted civil servants, the rich and the church on Wednesday in a sweeping new 4.8 billion euro ($6.5 billion) austerity programme designed to secure European help to tackle its crippling debt burden. The plan was welcomed by the markets and set the scene for crucial European support that analysts say could come soon. But German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose backing for any European safe...

Germany will urge European Union leaders to agree that International Monetary Fund (IMF) and bilateral European aid could be used as a "last resort" for Greece if it reached the brink of insolvency, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on 25 March.

Following yesterday’s phone conference with Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a joint statement that they were “convinced that the future of Greece is in the euro area”, in a further bid to dismiss talk of Greece being forced to leave the eurozone.

Handelsblatt reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel yesterday rejected a call from Spanish PM Jose Luis Zapatero for “EU-solidarity” for Greece. She also warned that the euro would not be stable without radical cuts in the budget deficits of member states: “Only if the financial markets evaluate that Greece can handle the reforms, will the euro be able to become stable agai...

For someone who had just finished 16 hours of intensive talks on a rescue package for Greece and the eurozone, German chancellor Angela Merkel seems to find little to faze her

A draft version of Europe 2020 seen by EurActiv indicated that the Commission wants to introduce so-called "country surveillance" schemes and link fiscal stabilisation programmes to expenditure in growth-friendly areas such as R&D and education. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has written to European Commission President JoséManuel Barroso to express her government's m...