欧洲财政官员说,他们将尽快采取措施,防止欧洲债务危机更加扩大。
欧洲中央银行行长和国际货币基金组织总裁星期三晚些时候将在柏林会见德国总理默克尔,帮助救助身陷债务危机希腊的计划在德国遭到反对。
德国一些议员批评柏林对危机的反应,但是德国驻希腊大使星期三承诺,德国“不会让希腊失望”。
希腊已经要求获得欧盟和国际货币基金组织联合提供的多达600亿美元的救助计划。然而,在标准普尔信贷评级机构星期二将希腊政府的公债下调至投机或“垃圾”等级后,人们对希腊的稳定和其它陷入财政危机欧洲国家的担忧在增加。
标准普尔还将葡萄牙的主权债务等级下调了两个级别。
European financial officials say they are moving as quickly as possible to prevent the region’s debt crisis from growing even larger.
The heads of the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund are scheduled to meet with German Chancellor Angela Merkel later Wednesday in Berlin, where plans to help bail out debt-ridden Greece have met opposition.
Some German parliamentarians have been critical of Berlin’s response to the crisis, but the German ambassador to Greece (Wolfgang Schultheiss) promised Wednesday that Germany “will not let down Greece.”
Greece has already asked to access a joint European Union-IMF aid package worth as much as $60 billion. However, concerns about the stability of Greece, and other financially troubled European countries, rose after the Standard and Poor’s credit rating agency downgraded Greek bonds to speculative or “junk” status on Tuesday.
The agency also slashed Portugal’s sovereign debt by two notches.