(LUXEMBOURG) – Italian finance minister Giulio Tremonti will hold talks on Wednesday in Luxembourg with eurozone chief Jean-Claude Juncker, as pressure intensified on Rome on government bond markets.
The Luxembourg government announced that Tremonti will meet Juncker, the Luxembourg prime minister who heads the Eurogroup of currency partners, at 9:50 am (0750 GMT).
That comes in between urgent talks with a special government economic committee involving Italy’s central bank that got under way on Tuesday afternoon, and an address to the Italian parliament later Wednesday.
The yield on the Italian 10-year bonds rose on Tuesday to 6.165 percent from 5.988 percent on Monday as investors nervous that the world’s eighth and eurozone’s third largest economy may be the next to succumb in the eurozone debt crisis sold off their holdings.
Rates above six percent are widely seen as unsustainable for a slow-growing eurozone country.
The spread with comparable 10-year bonds issued by Germany, the strongest eurozone economy, widened to a record 3.74 percentage points.
