Greece yesterday raised €1.625 billion, in an auction of six-month Treasury Bills as Europe struggled to contain debt contagion and stocks and the euro took a second day of pain.

“Total bids reached €3.6 billion and the amount finally accepted was €1.625 billion,” the Greek debt management agency said. The cost of borrowing the money inched lower to 4.9 per cent from 4.96 per cent offered to investors in an equivalent sale in June.

Yesterday’s auction had originally aimed to raise €1.25 billion.

The latest sale came as European finance ministers went into new crisis talks with the debt storm that started in Greece and subsequently spread to Ireland and Portugal now threatening to engulf Italy and Spain, the EU’s third and fourth largest economies.

Split for weeks over the terms of a second rescue of Greece, the ministers produced pledges to strengthen the size and scope of a multi-billion-dollar fund set up in the wake of last year’s first €110 billion bailout of Athens.

The fund could help buy back Greece’s mountain of debt, enabling the country to borrow at better rates on the markets, EU officials said.

Financial markets have increasingly bet on the possibility that Greece will either extend the repayment period on its debt or decide to reimburse less than the full amount owed.