Greek leaders have reluctantly agreed to slash an additional $US14 billion ($13.3 billion) in government spending over the next two years in an attempt to show creditors its intent to remain in the eurozone.

In Spain, another of the 17-nation monetary union's debt-laden members, regional leaders protested against similar planned spending cuts, but central government officials stood by their pledge to live up to the austerity measures in exchange for a banking rescue.

And in another symbolic plea to more solvent eurozone colleagues for help, the Italian Prime Minister, Mario Monti, took his case to prosperous Finland for concerted action to reduce borrowing costs for euro users being strangled by soaring interest rates.

The campaign to shore up the common currency put pressure on the European Central Bank to do something at its board meeting overnight to boost investors' confidence in the government bonds Italy and Spain need to float to pay their huge debts and to assure those holding Greek paper that Athens won't default.

It took three contentious leadership meetings in the past week for the Greek Prime Minister, Antonis Samaras, to persuade his coalition partners to agree to the 2013 and 2014 budget cuts, on top of already drastic cuts in public spending. After Wednesday's last-ditch negotiations, the Socialist Party leader, Evangelos Venizelos, said he agreed to the belt-tightening because the new government was at risk of collapsing if agreement wasn't reached. Athens needed to present its creditors with a plan for further austerity measures to get the next tranche of bailout funds due this month to cover pensions, public sector wages and interest on its loans.

Expectations that the central bank would take some action to ease interest rates for eurozone members were spurred last week when the bank's president, Mario Draghi, vowed to do ''whatever it takes'' to restore investor confidence in the euro and to prevent damaging ''speculation'' in the bond market.

But the eurozone's more financially stable members warned the bank not to overstep its authority. The leaders of Germany, Finland, Austria and others with good credit ratings feared borrowing costs would rise if the bank intervened to reduce government bond yields for the bigger debtors.

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Editor's Note: Glad to see they agreed...Tell us, when in history do the vanquished get to make the rules? Greece made its own financial bed and now they will tell the rest of Europe what they will and will not do in order to accept financial aid? Only in a Socialistic society...only in a Socialistic society...


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