Access Investments-European Union- ROMANIA

BUCHAREST - Romania sold EUR1.5 billion in five-year bonds at an annual yield of 5.29%, in the first issue of the country's EUR7 billion medium term notes (MTNs) program, with orders books closing at EUR3 billion, a Finance Ministry official said Thursday. Meanwhile - Greece's crisis-hit economy expanded by a sickly 0.2% in the first three months of this year – even worse than first thought – as its fiscal austerity measures strangled demand, official figures have revealed. The bailed-out economy is now shrinking at an annual rate of 5.5%, instead of an initial estimate of 4.8%, the Greek statistical agency said on Thursday. Bond yields jumped after the announcement, with the government now facing paying 25.08% over two years if it tried to borrow from the financial markets. The cost of insuring Greek debt against default also hit new record highs. Athens is widely expected to receive a fresh bailout from its eurozone partners in the coming weeks, but Germany is locked in a standoff with the European Central Bank about the terms of any new assistance package, and whether Greece's private sector creditors will have to bear part of the cost. The ECB is concerned that forcing bondholders to take a loss could spark a catastrophic loss of confidence in Europe's banks, many of which are sitting on millions of euros-worth of Greek debt.