Europe, Europe Debt | featured news

The jobless rate ticked up to 11.6 percent from the 11.5 percent in August, as 146,000 more people were classified as unemployed, data showed on Wednesday.

In spite of years of harsh spending cuts and tax increases, Europe's debt problems are getting worse. Figures from the EU's statistics office Wednesday showed that, at the end of the second quarter, the total government debt of the 17 countries that use the single currency was worth 90 percent of the group's total economic output for the year - the highest level since the euro was launched in 1999.

Protesters are expected to march through London on Saturday to voice their opposition to austerity measures imposed by the UK government, union leaders said.

The Spanish government said Wednesday it will decide within the next few weeks whether to ask for outside financial help, noting it might opt for a precautionary line of credit instead of bailout cash.

Spain could ask for financial aid from the euro zone next month and if it does the request would likely be dealt with alongside a revised loan program for Greece and a bailout for Cyprus in one big package, euro zone officials said.

The European Union has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to promote peace and democracy in Europe, in the midst of the union's biggest crisis since its creation in the 1950s.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel got a hostile reception from many ordinary Greeks Tuesday when she flew into Athens on her first visit to the country since its debt crisis erupted three years ago....

Spain’s conservative prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, is not known as a gambling man. But as Europe’s debt crisis stretches on, he is playing a tense game of chicken with the financial markets, betting that Spain can balance its books with homegrown austerity while putting off — maybe forever — a humiliating bailout from the European Union.

Spain is ready to request a euro zone bailout for its public finances as early as next weekend but Germany has signaled that it should hold off, European officials said on Monday. The latest twist in the euro zone's three-year-old sovereign debt crisis comes as financial markets and some other European partners are pressuring Madrid to seek a rescue program that would trigger European Central Bank buying of its bonds.

Tens of thousands of Spaniards and Portuguese rallied in the streets of their countries' capitals Saturday to protest enduring deep economic pain from austerity cuts.