European stock markets and the euro slid for the most part yesterday after eurozone finance ministers heaped pressure on Greece to get its fiscal house in order and to finalise a crucial debt deal.

London’s FTSE 100 index of leading shares was off by 0.53 per cent at 5,751.9 points at the close while in Paris; the CAC-40 index fell by 0.47 per cent to 3,322.65 points.

The German DAX 30 was 0.27 per cent lower at 6,419.22 points in Frankfurt, with European financial stocks turning in some of the heaviest losses.

Madrid shed 0.33 per cent, but Milan bucked the trend to post a slight gain of 0.14 per cent.

The euro dipped to $1.30 from $1.3027 late in New York on Monday.

US stocks were also mostly lower in morning trading as cash-strapped Greece’s efforts to get a debt write-down from the private sector hit another snag, and a mixed bag of US company earnings unsettled market sentiment.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped 0.31 per cent to 12,670.03 points, while the tech-rich Nasdaq Composite was flat at 2,784.69.

The broad-based S&P 500 lost 0.26 per cent to 1,312.56 points.

“Losses came after a meeting of euro-area finance chiefs finished with little progress on (the) Greek debt-swap deal,” Wells Fargo Advisors analysts said in a research note.

“In particular, Germany and the International Monetary Fund argued that Greece’s private creditors should agree to receive average interest rates of less than four per cent in the planned restructuring” of Athens’s debt, they said.

Banks involved in restructuring Greece’s debt said Monday they had made their best offer.