Barroso: 'We want Greece in the euro'

(BRUSSELS) - European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso insisted Tuesday that Greece will remain in the eurozone after one of his deputies suggested the eurozone would survive a Greek exit.

"We want Greece in the euro," Barroso told reporters.

"The cost of a Greek exit from the eurozone would be higher than the cost of continuing to support Greece," he said before talks with his predecessor Jacques Delors.

He added that Greece was "very close" to an agreement on a debt rescue package, which includes a new bailout from governments and banks taking losses on their bond holdings.

"We, the commission, are doing all we can to reach a solution."

European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes, in an interview with a Dutch newspaper, stressed she was not in favour of Athens going back to the drachma but said a Greek departure from the monetary union would not be a disaster.

"It is not a train crash if someone leaves the eurozone," Kroes, also commissioner for digital technology, told De Volkskrant daily newspaper.

"It is still being said that if you let one country leave or ask them to leave, then the entire structure collapses. That is simply not true."