Europe Debt Crisis | featured news

President Obama and leaders of the world’s other leading economies Saturday embraced a policy of growth over austerity in Europe as they met on the cloistered grounds of Camp David to talk about fending off a spread of the Eurozone crisis.

Political leaders in Greece need to show the resolve to stay in the euro zone, which will require Athens to stick to the terms of its rescue package, International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde said on Thursday.

Greece's president spoke of "fear that could develop into panic" at the country's banks in the weeks before fresh elections that could precipitate Athens exit from the euro zone.

Some two decades ago, when Europe’s leaders worked out the details of their grand vision to connect the European Union with a single currency, virtually every economist on this side of the Atlantic — and most of those on the other — figured out that the euro would be fatally flawed.

World stock markets dropped Monday as worries intensified over the condition of the eurozone and whether Greece is edging towards leaving the single currency union.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Sunday defended his government's harsh austerity measures aimed at correcting Spain's grim economic forecast, one day after tens of thousands of Spaniards took to the streets in protest of his handling of the country's worst crisis in decades.

Talks to broker a coalition government lead to insults and accusations. Europe is watching nervously, fearing the political chaos could threaten the euro.

Students are protesting on Barcelona's elegant boulevards, public-sector wages are being cut for the second time in three years and resentment is growing against the central government and beneficiaries of bank bailouts.

Spain's government tried to plug a gaping hole in the country's banking system on Friday, but the fourth such attempt to tackle the fallout of a property crash fell short of expectations.

Let Greece go: It's a possibility that's being considered more and more publicly in Europe. There have been two and a half years of bailouts, on top of broken promises by Greece to reform. The result: a fifth year of recession and, this week, political chaos. Voters on Sunday favored parties that either oppose the terms of the country's international bailout or want to renegotiate them. If it cannot get more rescue loans, Greece will go bankrupt and likely have to leave the eurozone, the currency union of 17 countries.