ECB’s Coeure says any euro exit would be warning for Europe: French publication

FRANKFURT The departure of any country from the euro zone would be a warning sign for Europe, one of the European Central Bank’s top officials said on Wednesday, adding that he expected Greece to stay inside the currency bloc.

“I refuse to discuss a Greek exit from the euro area because we are not working within that framework,” Benoit Coeure, a member of the ECB’s Executive Board, told French publication La Croix.

“We are financing the Greek economy and we are working alongside the IMF and the European Commission to secure an agreement with Athens, with the aim of keeping Greece in the euro area,” he said.

“If, one day, a country were to leave the euro area, that would be a serious warning sign for Europe because the question would inevitably arise as to whether such a scenario could be repeated,” he added.

(Reporting By John O’Donnell– Editing by Gareth Jones)