Europe should not exclude the possibility of intervening on Greek interest rates, Jean-Claude Juncker, the chairman of eurozone finance ministers said in a television interview on Sunday. "Intervening from the EU side on the level of interest rates in Greece is an idea which need not be excluded," he told French-language television station TV5 Monde's Internationales programme.
Greece is part of the 17-country eurozone, where the interest rate at which the central bank lends to commercial banks is set by the European Central Bank - the same rate for all eurozone countries - now at 1.25 percent.
Juncker did not elaborate, but he is likely to have referred to the possibility of the eurozone's emergency lending funds - the European Financial Stability Facility and the European Stability Mechanism, buying Greek bonds at primary auctions.