14.05.2012
By Simon Miller
European stock exchanges have continued to fall this morning over fears for the eurozone.
With Greece looking set for another round of elections following the failure to form a coalition government, Spain's continued banking problems adn fears over French President Francois Hollande's threatened rejection of austerity measures, markets followed the Far-East's lead and fell after opening this morning.
The 17-country strong Eurogroup is to meet at 17.00 BST this afternoon for talks that promise to be intensively political as Germany seeks to reinforce the mesage that Greece, in particular, will have to follow the agreed asuterity measures if it is to get its bailout money and avoid default.
There is anger that Greece is trying to call the eurozone's bluff over the conditions for its bailout after talks to form a government failed again on Sunday.
Although talks resume today, it has been rerpoted that it will be without Alexis Tsipras who has said that the baoilout must be torn up as a result, further elections are expected to be held next month.
Spain will also dominate after it was forced to part-nationalise its third-largest bank Bankia last week.
As a result, its bond yields shot up to a 2012 high of 6.218% putting further pressure on its funding costs as it copes with recession.
The FTSE 100 is down 85.64 at 5,489.88, while the EURO STOXX 50 is down 2.31% at 2,202.50. The CAC 40 has fallen 66.91 to 3,062.86 (10.13 BST).
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