Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou on Saturday denied there was even unofficial discussion over Greece quitting the euro zone and asked that his troubled country be "left alone to finish its task."
Ministers from the euro zone's biggest economies met in Luxembourg to discuss Greece's debt crisis on Friday but Athens and senior EU officials denied a report by Germany's Spiegel Online that the Greek government had raised the prospect of leaving the 17-member euro zone.
"These scenarios are borderline criminal," Papandreou told a conference on the Ionian island of Meganisi. "No such scenario has been discussed even in our unofficial contacts...I call upon everyone in Greece and abroad, and especially in the EU, to leave Greece alone to do its job in peace."
European Central bank Governing Council member Erkki Liikanen on Saturday shot down reports of Greece exiting the euro and said restructuring its 327 billion euro ($470 billion) debt would offer no permanent solution to its problems.
"No euro zone country wants to leave the euro," Liikanen, who also heads the Bank of Finland, said in an interview at Finnish national broadcaster Yle.
Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the group of euro zone finance ministers who called the late Friday meeting, said there was a broad discussion of Greece and other international economic issues but said the idea of exiting the euro was stupid.
"We have not been discussing the exit of Greece from the euro area. This is a stupid idea. It is in no way -- it is an avenue we would never take," he told reporters after the meeting attended by ministers from Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Read More
