Euro, Euro Zone | featured news

Spain, the latest combat zone in Europe's long-running debt wars, urged the euro zone to set up a new fiscal authority to manage the bloc's finances and send a clear signal to markets that the single currency project is irreversible.

Ireland was poised to announce a "yes" vote to a European budget discipline treaty on Friday, but the referendum result brings little respite to a euro zone tormented by doubts over Greece's future in the currency bloc and Spain's wobbly banks.

The European Central Bank stepped up pressure on Thursday for a joint fund to guarantee bank deposits in the euro zone, saying Europe needed news tools to fight bank runs as the bloc's debt crisis drives investors to flee risk.

Greece's conservative New Democracy party has regained an opinion poll lead that would allow the formation of a pro-bailout government committed to keeping the country in the euro zone, a batch of new surveys showed on Saturday.

Germany dismissed a French-led call for euro zone nations to issue common bonds, a day before a European Union leaders' summit which investors are looking to for new measures to counter the bloc's debt crisis.