The French and German economy ministers, in a joint statement to be published in European newspapers Thursday, call for a strengthened eurozone with a common budgetary mechanism and tools to avoid the
kind of debt problems Greece is suffering.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said he could not categorically rule out a Greek debt default as Athens
negotiates with its creditors, US and French newspapers reported on Wednesday.
Greece pushed Europe on Monday to back its reform plans and free up cash before a huge repayment to the IMF, but foreign minister Wolfgang Schäuble warned there would be no bailout deal yet.
Economic recovery has arrived in the 19 countries that share the euro, but it is up to governments to ensure it endures, European Central Bank executive board member Benoit Coeure said on Thursday.
Update: A German TV prankster "admitted" on Wednesday to faking a video showing Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis giving the middle-finger gesture to Germany, after the politician vehemently contested its authenticity - but ZDF television confirmed on Thursday that the confession was itself a fake.
Greece has drawn up a €7.3 billion tax hit list aimed at the country's oligarchs and lucrative smuggling industry, a German newspaper said, as part of reform proposals due to its creditors Monday.
UPDATE: A spokesman for Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said on Wednesday that any extension of international loans to Greece beyond the end of the month was "inextricably" linked to reforms agreed to by Athens under its current bailout.
Greece's prime minister Alexis Tsipras said Tuesday that the country "cannot return to an age of bailouts and suppression," ahead of critical talks with Athens's EU creditors.
Economics think tank Ifo said on Monday that their projections show Germany's exports exceeding imports by €220 billion in 2014, pushing the country to a new world record.
Germany's anti-euro Alternative for Germany (AfD) voted to streamline its leadership at its weekend conference, in a bid to heal the fractures within the fledgling party.
Plummeting energy costs and oil prices have driven Germany's rate of inflation into the red, the federal statistics agency reported on Thursday, though economists aren't ready to start talking deflation just yet.
Vice-Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel urged Greece to be "fair" to other EU member states, after the Bundesbank warned that ending the country's bailout programme would have "fatal consequences".
The European Central Bank (ECB) will buy €60 billion of European debt every month from March 2015 until September 2016, ECB president Mario Draghi announced on Thursday.
Southern European governments shouldn't think that a European Central Bank (ECB) plan to buy up government debt lets them off the hook for critical reforms, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday.
The eurozone faces a growing risk of unstable prices, the head of the European Central Bank said in an interview Friday, at a time when concerns are mounting the bloc could slip into deflation.
German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble said Monday that Greece must stick to agreed economic reforms regardless of the results of a snap election due next month.
Germany's finance minister has warned Greece that any new government must respect commitments made by its predecessor, as the country moved closer to early elections that EU officials fear would be won by a radical leftist party.
Investment sentiment in Germany rose sharply in December after a rebound the previous month, driven by a weak euro and plunging oil prices, a survey found on Tuesday.
A top level economic report on Thursday urged European heavyweights France and Germany to implement urgent economic reforms, warning that Europe risked falling into a "stagnation trap".
The European Central Bank is under fire in Germany because of its policy of negative interest rates, which is prompting some banks to charge business customers for holding money in their bank accounts.
Former British prime minister John Major warned there was a "real possibility" that Britain will vote to leave the European Union and called for more immigration controls at a speech in Berlin on Thursday.
