
The European Commission and European Central Bank are making contingency plans for a possible Greek exit from the euro, an EU commissioner says.
Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said such plans would minimise any "domino effect" from Greece.
He was speaking in an interview with Belgium's De Standaard newspaper.
But one ECB executive board member said the bank was strongly in favour of Greece remaining part of the eurozone.
"It is our strong preference that Greece remains in the euro," Jose Manuel Gonzalez-Paramo, who is due to leave the ECB at the end of May, told the Reuters news agency.
During the eurozone crisis Brussels has insisted that it wants to keep Greece in the euro, while demanding that Athens fulfil pledges to cut spending.
"Today, whether within the European Central Bank or the European Commission, services are studying emergency scenarios where Greece cannot manage," Mr De Gucht told De Standaard.
He added that "a Greek exit does not mean the end of the euro, as some claim".
He did not give details of the plans being made in Brussels and Frankfurt - the headquarters of the Commission and ECB.
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