Eurozone wants Greek interest rates below 3.5 pct BRUSSELS (AP) - The head of the Eurogroup says that eurozone finance ministers want the average interest rate on new, lower-value bonds issued as part of a debt relief for Greece to be "well below 3.5 percent" - far lower than the rates offered by representatives of Greece's private creditors. Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg who also chairs the meetings of eurozone finance ministers, says the 3.5 percent referred to the average interest rate for the period until 2020. The eurozone wants banks and other financial firms to swap their old Greek bonds for new ones with half the face value in an effort to make the country's debts sustainable. Juncker said early Tuesday that Greece's debt had to reach 120 percent of GDP by 2020 and that rescue loans from the eurozone and the IMF would be limited to euro130 billion. A Greek official said the government now hopes to make a formal offer on the bond swap to investors by Feb. 13. He declined to be named because talks are ongoing. On Monday, the head of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde, called on Europe's stronger economies to do more to boost growth and beef up the defenses against the continent's debt crisis. After meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Christine Lagarde urged the leaders of the 17 countries that use the euro to deal with the crisis that is threatening another recession in the eurozone. "There are three imperatives - one is stronger growth, two is larger firewalls; three, deeper integration," she said in a speech to the German Council on Foreign Relations. Resorting to across-the-board, across-the continent, without differentiation, budgetary cuts will only add to recessionary pressures. Merkel insisted Monday that the debt crisis has shown that the bloc's leaders must now press for a genuine political union. "In my opinion it is the great task of the coming years to move forward on the path of a political union," Merkel said in Berlin. Ministers in Brussels will also seek to put the finishing touches on their permanent bailout fund - the euro500 billion European Stability Mechanism - which is scheduled to come into force this year.