And for his part, political sources say Mr Samaris will sign a "letter of commitment" to the deal by the end of today - the fact he hadn't signed up earlier led to eurozone finance ministers cancelling their meeting today. 09.15 And while seriously bad economic news is coming out all over Europe, the European Commission is saying ... nothing, according to Bruno Waterfield in Brussels. 09.05 Italy's GDP numbers are out and worse than expected: The economy shrank by 0.7pc in the last quarter of 2011, meaning the country is in recession after it contracted 0.2pc in the thid quarter. 08.50 The rumour mill this morning is spinning with talk that a growing number of European players want to push Greece out of the eurozone, as observed by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard (see 06.50 post). However FT commentator Martin Wolf writes this morning that ther is a bigger question here - what is the future for the eurozone as a whole if Greece does go? The eurozone is in a form of limbo: it is neither so deeply integrafted that break-up is inconceivable, nor so lightly integrated that break-up is tolerable. Indeed the most powerful guarantee of its survival is the costs of breaking it up. Maybe that will prove sufficient. Yet if the eurozone is to be more than a grim marriage sustained by the frightening costs of dividing up assets and liabilities, it has to be built on something vastly more positive than that. Given the economic divergences and political frictions revelaed so starkly by this crisis, is that now possible? That is the most difficult question of all. 08.25 European shares have started the day strongly, although the FTSE is trading almost flat ahead of today's economic news. The FTSE 100 is up 0.03pc at 5,902 points, while the CAC added 0.8pc and the DAX climbed 1pc. 08.20 The Telegraph's Alistair Osborne says in this morning's City briefing that today's jobs figures and the Bank of England report are unlikely to make Moody's change its mind after putting the UK's AAA rating on neagtive watch. The latest jobs numbers and the Bank of England's quarterly inflation report may do little to dissuade the US agency to go easy on our triple A credit rating. But they are bound to maintain the political row over whether George Osborne's economic medicine is working. On the jobs front, there are the three month figures to December and January's claimant count. The most recent three months to November showed that unemployment rose by 118,000 to 2.68m, the highest level since August 1994. 08.10 UK jobs figures are out later today, and the Bank of England also gives its inflation report, outlining its forecasts for the economy. Angela Mongahan and Philip Aldrick will report from the Bank's meeting this morning and give this preview: The Bank's latest quarterly Inflation Report is expected today to show a sharp drop in the forecast for the benchmark consumer prices index (CPI), after more than two years above the official 2pc target. The downward trend has already begun, after CPI peaked at 5.2pc in December. Data from the Office for National Statistics on Tuesday showed inflation fell to a 14-month low of 3.6pc in January from 4.2pc in December, and the pace of the decline is expected to accelerate. 07.45 Back to France, where Nicolas Sarkozy should have a smile on his face - the economy remained in growth while Germany's shrank in the fourth quarter (see 07.05 post). Household consumption held up and corporate investment also picked up, after shrinking in the previous quarter. That's the kind of news our own Chancellor would like to hear. Germany's economy shrank in the fourth quarter of 2011, with GDP contracting by 0.2pc. That was marginally better than the 0.3pc contraction economists expected. 07.10 Some good news for the eurozone - the governor of China's central bank has pledged to keep buying European government debt and expressed his confidence in the single currency. Zhou Xiaochuan said: As Premier Wen Jiabao said yesterday at the China-EU summit, China will... continue to invest in European government bonds and will continue... to get more involved in solving the European debt crisis. We have confidence in the euro. 07.05 Eurozone countries' growth figures for the fourth quarter of last year are out this morning - and France has been quick off the mark. The French economy grew by 0.2pc in the last three months of 2011, beating forecasts it would shrink by 0.1pc. In 2011 as a whole, France's economy grew 1.7pc. France also said this morning it expects the economy to grow by 0.5pc in 2012. 06.55 So what happened last night to make EU finance ministers cancel the meeting they were due to have in Brussels today to ratify Greece's bail-out? Reports this morning say they will hold a teleconference instead, in order to persuade the country's politicians to do even more. Apparently, the group believe Greece has not offered enough commitments to the austerity measures voted through by parliament on Sunday, as violence raged on the streets outside. The particular stumbling block seems to be Antonis Samaras, leader of the party expected to win April's election, who has indicated he would try to renegotiate the bailout conditions if elected. Jean-Claude Juncker, the president of the group of finance ministers (the eurogroup) said: It has appeared that further technical work between Greece and the troika is needed in a number of areas, including the closure of the fiscal gap of €325m in 2012 and the debt sustainability analysis. Furthermore, I did not yet receive the required political assurances from the leaders of the Greek coalition parties on the implementation of the programme. The next meeting of the eurogroup is scheduled for this coming Monday, February 20th, so ministers won't be able to give their approval of the bail-out package for Greece until then. 06.50 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard has written an analysis of the Greek plight on a day when Luxembourg's foreign minister said a return to the drachma "might be something which would allow Greece also to get a new start" and one conservative Greek MP simply stated: "You answer war with war." More from our international business editor in Athens: The country appears to be in a self-feeding downward spiral that is playing havoc with budget targets, leaving Greece with a Sisyphean task of ever deeper cuts. Premier Lucas Papademos called his cabinet together late last night to find a further €325m (£272m) of fiscal austerity demanded by the troika, likely to be defence cuts and lower salaries. The coalition parties failed to convince the Eurogroup that they would stick to the deal, and the mood has been poisoned by EU demands for an escrow account to seize Greek budget revenues at source. Blackened buildings set alight by protesters on Sunday were cordoned off on streets around parliament in Syntagma Square, a vivid reminder to Greece's politicians that any misjudgment could push the country towards anarchy. Greek Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos arrives for a cabinet meeting in the Greek parliament in Athens on Tuesday (Photo: EPA) 06.45 Meanwhile, most of this morning's business pages are still dominated by Greece: Telegraph: Greece's goodbye to the euro edges ever closer Financial Times (£): Eurozone divisions threaten Greece aid Guardian: George Osborne tries to be positive on negative outlook for economy The Times (£): Greece's rescue package in doubt 06.40 That didn't stop Chancellor George Osborne from insisting yet again that it's Plan A or the highway. He told Radio 4 yesterday: For me it was a reality check for the whole political system that Britain has to deal with its debts, that we can't waver in the path of dealing with out debts. While shadow chancellor Ed Balls insisted that the move was: ...the first evidence that even the ratings agencies are waking up to the fact George Osborne's plan's not working. 06.35 The market turmoil you might expect following Monday's series of downgrades by Moody's just didn't happen yesterday, as investors were reassured by a jump in German confidence and other upbeat data. The FTSE 100 closed down 0.1pc at 5899.87, the CAC 40 in Paris fell 0.3pc to 3375.64, and the DAX in Frankfurt closed down just 0.1pc at 6728.19, despite Moody's decision to downgrade Italy, Spain, Portugal, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia, and to place a negative outlook on the UK, France and Austria. The downbeat move by Moody's was partially offset by the German ZEW confidence index, which was surprisingly strong, rising to a 10-month high of 5.4 in February from -21.6 in January. Economists had forecast a smaller fall to -11.8.