Greek Finance Minister George Papaconstantinou has proposed a ban on derivative trading techniques that increase debt costs for countries like Greece which struggle to cut their deficits.

In an interview, Papaconstantinou recounted how the Greek government that came to power last fall discovered budget deficits were twice what had been made public and instituted austerity measures to try to regain control.

"Greece is doing what it should be doing to clean up its own mess," Papaconstantinou insisted. "However, there's a broader problem here, it's a European problem, it has to do with the euro and it has to do with speculation."

He repeated a call made yesterday by Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou for stricter controls to curb speculators that target debt-strapped countries and make it difficult and costly for them to borrow to finance their deficits.

"What has become very clear in this affair is that over and above the fiscal problems that any particular country has...there are kinds of questions about what kinds of use people make of things like credit derivative swaps, how opaque these markets are, how it's not clear who's trading what and how these can push countries...to the brink," he said. - Reuters