Euro trims losses on Merkel, Sarkozy comments

NEW YORK: The euro trimmed losses against the dollar on Tuesday after France and Germany said they were determined to fully implement decisions made at the European Union Summit last week.

The EU summit agreed on a three-fold plan to contain the debt crisis by calling for a Greek debt haircut, the recapitalization of euro zone banks and boosting the region's rescue fund by leveraging it up to as much as 1 trillion euros.

A German government spokesman said on Tuesday French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a phone conversation agreed they were committed to last week's EU decisions. That slightly eased concerns about a referendum that Greece has called for on the EU rescue package.

The euro edged up to $1.36920 after the news and was last at $1.36740, still down 1.3 percent on the day.

Copyright Reuters, 2011