Britain's Finance Minister George Osborne said on Sunday it would not be straightforward for an independent Scotland to keep the pound as its currency, as proposed by those campaigning for the country to break away from the United Kingdom next year.

The eurozone's current account surplus widened to 16.3 billion euros (US$21.3 billion) in February from 13.8 billion euros in January, European Central Bank data showed on Friday.

France presented Wednesday a plan to get its public deficit back under the EU limit by 2014, having decided to let debt grow further as it tries to jumpstart a sputtering economy.

French retail giant Carrefour reported on Thursday a 7.5-percent drop in 2013 first-quarter sales compared with the same period a year earlier, as European gloom and unfavorable foreign exchange rates erased a contribution made by growth in emerging markets.

PSA Peugeot Citroen and Toyota led European car sales 10.3-percent lower in March, as the unrelenting market contraction spread north, unnerving automakers.

After a bungled bailout of Cyprus, the recession-stricken eurozone will stand out for the wrong reasons when finance ministers meet in Washington this week to run the rule over the global economy.

A spokesman for the European Union's antitrust body says Google has submitted proposals to address concerns that it is dominating the online search and advertising markets.

French media group Lagardere said Monday it made a capital gain of 1.8 billion euros (US$2.35 billion) for the sale of a 7.4-percent stake in the European defense and aerospace company EADS.

The 17-nation eurozone posted a trade surplus of 10.4 billion euros (US$13.6 billion) after recording a revised deficit of 4.7 billion euros in January, Eurostat said Monday.

An inspection team of international lenders has finished its review of Greece's austerity program, paving the way for another 10-billion-euro aid payment, a source with knowledge of the talks said on Saturday.