It is not the aim or purpose to talk about Italy.” 
 
 Some officials played down the meeting, pointing out that Germany, which has the biggest economy in the European Union, would not be on hand and that Mr. Van Rompuy and Mr. Barroso would not take part in the later gathering of euro zone finance ministers. The special session of top European officials is to start about 8:30 a.m. Monday, when a scheduled meeting between Mr. Van Rompuy and the president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, will be expanded to include Mr. Trichet; the European commissioner for economic and monetary affairs, Olli Rehn; and Jean-Claude Juncker, the prime minister of Luxembourg, who presides over meetings of the so-called Eurogroup of finance ministers from the 17 countries that use the euro as their official currency. But Dirk De Backer, a spokesman for Mr. Van Rompuy, said Mr. Grilli would be there in his capacity as head of the euro zone’s Economic and Financial Committee and not to discuss his country’s economy.  Investors were unnerved in part by evidence of a growing divide between the Italian prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, and the finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, who has been praised for his handling of the economy during the financial crisis and for maintaining control of the budget deficit. "We can't go on for many more days like Friday," a senior ECB official said. German officials insist they too want to put together the second Greek bailout as quickly as possible, but the private sector's contribution is proving to be a major sticking point. Despite some insistence that investors should bear some of the pain, the European Central Bank has been very skeptical about involving private sector holders of Greeks bonds in the second bailout, an aid package estimated at 85 billion euros ($121 billion). After the statement, Germany appeared to push for its original idea that investors swap the Greek bonds they hold for new debt with longer maturities. Since the euro zone's debt crisis erupted last year, the region's rich governments have aimed to limit it to Greece, Ireland and Portugal, which have so far signed up to bailouts totaling 273 billion euros -- a sum that is small compared to the financial resources of the zone as a whole. But because of the large sizes of the Spanish and Italian economies, pressure on the euro zone would increase dramatically if those countries eventually needed financial assistance.
– Top European officials scheduled a last-minute meeting today amid fears Italy would be the next country hit hard by the euro zone debt crisis. Though a rep for the European Council president says Italy isn’t on the agenda, other officials privately contradict him. Last Friday saw a 2.45% gap between the yields of Italian and German 10-year bonds—the biggest since the euro began. The Italian yield has hit some 5.27%, just below the 5.5% bankers fear could prompt a widening crisis. Meanwhile, the country’s blue-chip stock market index dropped 3.5%. Investors are worried Silvio Berlusconi may be trying to squeeze out the country’s finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, who has been considered highly effective during the financial crisis and in managing debt. The threat to Italy hasn’t approached the severity of the Greek crisis, but its economy is more than double the size of Greece, Portugal, and Ireland combined, notes the New York Times. “We can't go on for many more days like Friday," a European official tells Reuters. "We're very worried about Italy."