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The rising cost of buying insurance through so-called credit default swaps (CDSs) on Greek debt came amid continued prevarication among eurozone finance ministers about releasing bailout funds to the indebted country and a warning that Italy's credit rating might be cut. According to Gavan Nolan, credit analyst at Markit, to insure €10m (£8.8m) of Greek debt would cost €2m every year for five years. No other country is as expensive to insure. Venezuela is the next most expensive, but even then is almost half the cost. The Greek government faces a confidence vote on Tuesday, which is adding to anxiety among investors, particularly as European finance ministers have said the bailout needs to be accompanied by austerity measures. Stock markets in Europe were weak on the opening, but a strong start by Wall Street helped to contain losses among European shares, with the FTSE 100 and the German stock market both ending 0.3% lower. However, the Italian market was down further as investors reacted to a warning by Moody's that it might downgrade the country's debt rating. With the cost of insuring against a Greek default rising, City sources were pointing to the potential controversy about whether the country's debt would be tackled in a such a way as to avoid the insurance sold through CDSs paying out. Some sources said they were concerned that if holders of CDSs became entitled to payouts it would cause the institutions that sold the insurance to make multimillion pound payments.