(MENAFN- AFP) Europe's main stock markets rose Tuesday with London's benchmark index soaring to its highest level on record after eurozone finance ministers backed an extension of Greece's bailout.
In Athens the ATHEX index of leading companies also surged, closing up 9.81 percent on eurozone ministers' approving Greece's list of reforms as "a valid starting point" that opens the way to a four-month extension of the country's financial lifeline.
In London the FTSE 100 index reached its highest level on record, beating its previous peak in December 1999, ending the day up 0.54 percent to 6.949.63 points.
"After 15 years of market ups and downs since the peak of the dotcom boom, the FTSE 100 did it, a new all-time high," said Jasper Lawler, analyst at traders CMC Markets UK.
The index has been rising steadily for months, helped by central bank stimulus and improvements to the British and US economies that have offset weakness in China and eurozone strains.
Frankfurt's DAX 30 index finished the day up 0.67 percent to 11,205.74 points, while in Paris the CAC 40 rose 0.50 percent to 4,886.44 points.
In foreign exchange activity, the euro stabilised at $1.1333 from $1.1337 late Monday in New York.
At the last moment on Monday Greece submitted to Brussels reform proposals that include a raft of measures aimed at tackling corruption, improving efficiencies in tax collection, the social security system and government bureaucracy.
While the eurozone's finance ministers found that sufficient to approve extending Greece's 240 billion euro ($270 billion) bailout for four months, parliaments in several countries must also give their okay in the coming days. Greece's current bailout programme expires on Saturday.
But the International Monetary Fund, which has also contributed to Greece's bailout, criticised the Greek reform plan, saying it lacks clear signs that Athens will follow through on its promises.
In a number of areas, "including perhaps the most important ones," the letter proposing the reforms "is not conveying clear assurances that the government intends to undertake the reforms envisaged," said IMF managing director Christine Lagarde in a statement.
"Greece is certainly not out of the woods," said analyst Jennifer McKeown at Capital Economics. "This deal is just a stop-gap and nothing has yet been done to tackle Greece's unsustainable debt position."
- Focus on Yellen -
Market focus Tuesday was also on the United States as Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said the US labour market still showed cyclical weakness and inflation continued to fall, making any interest rate hike unlikely before June.
In testimony before Congress, Yellen also said that frailties in China and Europe continued to pose a risk for the US economy, supporting the need for keeping the extraordinarily loose monetary policy currently in place.
But she said that generally the US economy continued to grow fast enough to bring down unemployment, and the Fed expected that inflation would return back to normal over the medium term.
That leaves the Fed still on course to begin normalising monetary policy later this year after keeping its base interest rate at the zero level for more than six years.
Wall Street stocks were mixed around mid-day in New York with the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbing 0.33 percent to 18,176.63 points.
The broad-based S&P 500 slipped 0.12 percent to 2,107.76, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index dropped 0.18 percent to 4,953.21.
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