European Union, Eurozone | featured news

Unemployment across the 17 countries that use the euro ended 2011 at a record high of one person in every 10, official figures showed Tuesday, a day after EU leaders acknowledged that they would have to boost economic growth with the same urgency that they had shown in combating their nations' debts....

European Union leaders made some progress toward a strategy to fight the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis on Sunday, nearing agreement on bank recapitalization and on how to leverage their rescue fund to try to stop bond market contagion.

A top bank lobbyist insisted Saturday that banks and the eurozone are far from reaching a deal to cut Greece's debt, despite claims by eurozone finance ministers that they will ask banks to take steeper losses on their Greek bonds.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso tells MEPs that Greece will stay in the eurozone but warns the EU is facing its "greatest challenge".

European Council President Herman Van Rompuy has called an emergency meeting of top officials dealing with the euro zone debt crisis for Monday morning, reelecting concern that the crisis could spread to Italy, the region's third largest economy.

The European Union agreed on a 500 billion-euro ($670 billion) emergency fund in the early hours of Monday to protect highly indebted eurozone countries from the "wolfpack" of financial markets.