Eurozone crisis live: Merkel says Greek exit would be huge mistake - 27 March

CDU candidate in the Saarland elections Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (L) and chancellor Angela Merkel. Photograph: John Macdougall/AFP/Getty Images

5.40pm: Looking ahead to tomorrow, there's plenty of economic data out...

• UK - final reading of GDP for Q4, current account for Q4
• France - detailed GDP for Q4
• Germany - preliminary CPI for March
• Italy - business confidence for March
• euro zone - money supply for February.

In the afternoon, ECB vice president Vitor Constancio will give a speech and there are planned strikes for transport workers in Athens. And with that, it's time to close the blog. Once again, thanks for all the comments, and we'll be back tomorrow.
Live blog - market down

5.17pm: Quick round up of the markets. The French and German indices were dragged down by oil stocks, after French company Total said it might take six months to stop a massive gas leak at a platform in the North Sea. More on that here.

The French CAC finished the day down by almost 1%, while the German Dax was 0.33% lower. The FTSE closed down 0.6%.

The Euro has been up and down against the dollar today but traders said there was little news to drive it in any one particular direction. Daragh Maher, currency strategist at HSBC, said

    We finished more or less where we started. Yesterday we had events. Today is more like a consolidation in the market.

5.08pm: As bad as things are in Greece, the sovereign debt crisis has not brought everything to a grinding halt. The Greek Olympic committee is saying that its leg of the 2012 Olympic torch relay will still go ahead despite near empty public coffers. Helena Smith in Athens reports:

    International sponsors appear to have come to the rescue of not only the Olympic torch lighting ceremony – a theatrical affair involving 'nymphs' dressed in ancient garb in ancient Olympia – but the torch relay which will see the flame being carried through 40 towns and cities across Greece.

    With just over 100 days before the opening of the London games on July 27, Greek organizers confirmed that an array of international conglomerates had agreed to pick up the bill for the 1,800-mile journey the flame will make before it is put on a London-bound plane. The lighting ceremony takes place May 10.

    "It's going to be as good a torch relay as any other," said a member of the Hellenic Olympic Committee (HOC), "although, yes, it would have been very difficult without sponsors and private individuals stepping in."

    Earlier this week, HOC head Spyros Kapralos, vowed there would be no letting up of the torch relay on Greek soil. "It's going all around the country … to remind all our fellow countrymen of the importance of the torch, the importance of the Olympic Games, that everything started from here."

    But, he added, it was "essential" to remind Greeks that they would not be picking up the bill. "The costs will be covered by sponsorships, the participation of local communities and individuals," he said.