Greek riot victim buried as talks held

A Greek Orthodox priest comforted Eleni Zoulia during the funeral of her daughter Paraskevi, 35, at a cemetery in Athens yesterday.

Paraskevi Zoulia was one of the three bank workers who died on Wednesday when rioters set fire to the central Athens bank branch. The Greek government has pledged to bring those responsible to justice.

European leaders are now trying to persuade global markets that Greece's debt crisis will not spread and derail economic recovery.

As the 16 euro countries prepared to meet, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and EU President Herman Van Rompuy discussed the financial fallout of the past few days which has placed pressure on the euro in financial markets.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country holds the key to any solution, spoke with President Barack Obama, who said he supported the effort to deal with the financial crisis.

After the euro dropped to its lowest level in 14 months, a summit originally called to sign off on the bail-out and draw lessons for the future turned into one of crisis management.

EU leaders have insisted for days that the Greek financial implosion is a unique combination of bad management, free spending and statistical cheating that does not apply to other eurozone nations, such as the troubled economies of Spain or Portugal.

They said the bail-out should contain the problem by giving Greece three years of support and preventing a default when it has to pay 8.5bn euros in bonds due on May 19.