Brussels - The European Commission warned of "catastrophe" if Greece has to abandon the euro and its chief executive, Jean-Claude Juncker, urged EU governments to show solidarity as Athens struggles to secure more credit.
A day after German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said Greece might stumble out of the euro zone because new, left-wing leaders failed to negotiate new borrowings, Juncker's economics commissioner said EU hardliners underestimated the risk that this would start a fatal domino collapse of the common currency.
"All of us in Europe probably agree that a Grexit would be a catastrophe - for the Greek economy, but also for the euro zone as a whole," Pierre Moscovici told Der Spiegel - a view not in fact shared by some conservative allies of Chancellor Angela Merkel who favour amputating the bloc's troubled Greek limb.