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
International status and usage of the euro euro exceed dollar reserves for the first time; Russia held 47.5% (up from 42% in 2008) in euro and 41.5% (down from 47%) in dollar leading the Central Bank of Russia to announce the euro had become the reserve currency of Russia. The usage of the euro is particularly strong in eastern Europe, not surprisingly in those that have joined the EU, with 54.8% of all loans in Bulgaria, and 85.2% in Latvia before Eurozone accession, being issued in euro rather than the local currencies. The following table shows central banks allocated reserves in euros and US dollar. A currency