History of modern Greece force Greece to abandon the euro and bring back its former currency, the drachma. In April 2014, Greece returned to the global bond market as it successfully sold €3 billion worth of five-year government bonds at a yield of 4.95%. According to the IMF, Greece will have real GDP growth of 0.6% in 2014 after 5 years of decline. Following the May 2012 legislative election where the New Democracy party became the largest party in the Hellenic Parliament, Samaras, leader of ND, was asked by Greek President Karolos Papoulias to try to form a government. However, after a day of
Euro the highest weighting. With the exception of Bosnia, Bulgaria, Macedonia (which had pegged their currencies against the Deutsche Mark) and Cape Verde (formerly pegged to the Portuguese escudo), all of these non-EU countries had a currency peg to the French Franc before pegging their currencies to the euro. Pegging a country's currency to a major currency is regarded as a safety measure, especially for currencies of areas with weak economies, as the euro is seen as a stable currency, prevents runaway inflation and encourages foreign investment due to its stability. Within the EU several currencies are pegged to the euro,