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Europe faced the spectre of Greek calls for new financial aid on Saturday as Athens' 'catastrophic' finances returned to haunt stressed euro zone states.
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou urged 'the EU in particular, to leave Greece in peace to do its job', but Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou later warned that Athens may need more hard cash support.
'We need to plan our next steps for 2012 and 2013 so that Greece can either access markets or use the European council's recent decision that enables the European (rescue) fund to buy Greek bonds,' Mr Papaconstantinou said, after G-20-eurozone talks overnight in Luxembourg.
National and specialist financial media each reported that Athens may yet come calling for fresh funds from European Union bailout mechanisms, over and above the 110 billion euros (S$198 billion) agreed a year ago.
Without naming its source, French business daily Les Echos said Mr Papaconstantinou secured tacit acceptance that Greece's political backers could make another 20-25 billion available if more cuts and accelerated state sell-offs failed.
The resurrection of the Greek debt conundrum comes days after a 78-billion aid package was agreed with Portugal and fresh from a 67.5-billion international rescue for Ireland - all of which leaves the EU struggling to close off a sorry chapter at a late-June summit.
ST
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