(MENAFN- AFP) European stock markets fell Thursday on concerns over Greek finances as investors waited for Athens to come through with a reform plan to seal a new deal on its bailout.
London's benchmark FTSE 100 index slumped 1.20 percent to 6,907.23 points in afternoon deals in the capital, as traders brushed aside news of a rebound in British retail sales.
Frankfurt's DAX 30 index shed 1.29 percent compared with Wednesday's close to 11,712.62 points and the CAC 40 in Paris lost 1.30 percent to stand at 4,955.55.
The main index in Athens tumbled 3.57 percent.
The euro Thursday rose to a three-week high of $1.1052, before standing at $1.0976, up from $1.0973 late in New York on Wednesday.
The euro has come under heavy pressure in recent months, falling to multi-year lows against the pound and dollar on eurozone strains and expectations that the US and Britain would soon raise interest rates.
"Athens has pledged to draft a set of reforms but we have yet to see any action, and this is fuelling the selloff in London and the eurozone," said David Madden, market analyst at IG trading group.
"If it wasn't for the FTSE 100's large element of energy stocks the losses would be even worse, with the jump in oil providing some brief respite for this embattled sector."
He added: "Across the English Channel the bounce back in the euro has hindered continental equity markets."
The governor of the Greek central bank ruled out the country's exit from the eurozone on Wednesday, and said that Athens was close to reaching a deal with its creditors.
"Grexit is not an option for Greece, it is not an option for the eurozone. It is not going to happen," Yannis Stournaras told an event in London.
Athens has faced funding difficulties since the EU and IMF refused to release the final tranche of Greece's 240-billion-euro bailout, after the hard-left government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras came to power in January on a platform of reducing austerity.
- Lufthansa, LSE slide -
As the investigation reveals startling information about the crash in the French Alps of a plane from Lufthansa's low-cost division Germanwings, killing all 150 on board, the airline group's shares fell by more than four percent on Thursday.
The Germanwings co-pilot "deliberately" initiated the descent and refused to open the door to the pilot who was outside the cockpit, the lead investigator said on Thursday. By mid-afternoon Lufthansa's shares were down 3.48 percent at 12.91 euros.
Lufthansa's CEO Carsten Spohr told a press conference he was "stunned" by the revelations, adding that no security "system in the world" could have prevented the co-pilot's actions.
Elsewhere, Borse Dubai said it had sold its significant stake in the London Stock Exchange, sending the British group's share price plunging.
The stake is worth £1.53 billion according to the LSE share price at the close of trading on Wednesday, at 2,538 pence.
In Thursday deals following the announcement, LSE crashed to 2,345 pence, down 7.60 percent on London's FTSE 100 in late afternoon deals.
US stocks opened lower Thursday as the Yemen crisis lifted oil prices amid worries US equities have become overvalued.
Five minutes into trade, the Dow Jones Industrial Average stood at 17,628.88, down 0.51 percent.
The broad-based S&P 500 fell 0.45 percent to 2,051.77, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite Index lost 0.90 percent at 4,832.59.
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