The European Union's top finance officials hold critical talks on Greece and the worsening situation in Italy on Monday, with concerns about the risk of further sovereign debt contagion acute, Reuters reported. Herman Van Rompuy, the president of the European Council, will meet European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet and Jean-Claude Juncker, the chairman of the Eurogroup, for talks in Brussels around midday, ahead of a meeting of the 17 euro zone finance ministers later on Monday. Van Rompuy's spokesman described the gathering, which also includes European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, and the EU's economic and monetary affairs commissioner, Olli Rehn, as a "coordination, not a crisis meeting", and said Italy would not be on the agenda. However, senior EU sources said it would be impossible not to discuss the situation in Italy, the euro zone's third largest economy, following a large sell-off in Italian assets that the Italian media have dubbed "black Friday". Vittorio Grilli, director-general of the Italian treasury, will also attend the pre-Eurogroup meeting in his capacity as chairman of the EU's economic and financial committee. Shares in Italy's biggest bank, Unicredit Spa , gyrated wildly on Monday after losing 7.9 percent on Friday, partly because of worries about the results of stress tests of European banks that will be released on July 15. Other banks stocks also fell heavily.
