A pledge by leaders of industrialized nations to help the troubled world economy is unlikely to herald quick new action by Europe on its debt crisis, meaning more uncertainty for nervous financial markets.

The Group of Eight economies stressed on Saturday that their"imperative is to promote growth and jobs", as they also recognized problems among European banks and gave verbal backing for Greece to stay in the euro.

Still, despite US calls for immediate moves to boost growth, no sign emerged that Germany would soften its stance on austerity as the cure for Europe's debt problems.

With no consensus from Europe, markets will remain in a state of alert about the risk of a chaotic Greek exit from the euro, which would hit the region's banking system and possibly the global economy.

"The market loves to hate the euro right now, and we expect continued pressure now that the chance of a Greek exit is high,"said Michael Woolfolk, senior currency strategist at BNY Mellon.

"The G8 is really powerless to stop this."

Markets face an unsettling month before Greece holds fresh elections that parties opposed to its austere bailout package could win.

If Greeks back pro-austerity parties on June 17, as some polls have suggested, some of the pressure could ease.

Last week, the US stock market posted its worst weekly loss for the year and the S&P fell for a sixth straight session.

The euro is close to its lowest levels of 2012.

European leaders on Wednesday will begin thrashing out ideas for boosting the region's recession-threatened economy that are likely to be limited.

The most likely areas of agreement would give only a small boost to growth in Europe, including providing more money for the European Investment Bank and ways to make existing European Union funds for regional investment easier to access.

Another idea is to sell bonds to fund infrastructure. Germany says they should use only existing EU budget money.

New French President Francois Hollande, as if to underscore differences with German Chancellor Angela Merkel ahead of France's parliamentary elections in June, said he would press his case to his fellow EU leaders on We dnesday for the sale of"euro bonds" backed by all the currency area's 17 member states.

That idea remains a non-starter for Berlin, at least in the short term while government budgets are so weak.