TOKYO: The euro lost ground against other major currencies in Asian trade Wednesday as nervous investors await a summit of European Union leaders focusing on Greece's possible exit from the eurozone.
The euro fetched $1.2671 and 101.22 yen in Tokyo morning trade, lower than $1.2684 and 101.45 yen in New York late Tuesday.
The dollar changed hands at 79.88 yen, dipping slightly from 79.98 yen.
Market sentiment was dampened on the eve of Wednesday's European Union summit in Brussels as former Greek Prime Minister Lucas Papademos warned over Athens' possible pullout from the eurozone.
"The risk of Greece leaving the euro is real," he said.
Investors fear Greece's fiscal woes will have a ripple effect across the 17-nation bloc, including Spain where tens of thousand of striking teachers and students and their supporters demonstrated countrywide to protest against deep cuts to education spending.
"I personally don't think much will come out of the EU Summit that will drastically alter the situation in Greece or Spain," Junichi Ishikawa, forex analyst at IG Market Securities in Tokyo, told Dow Jones Newswires.
European leaders have promised a no-holds-barred debate on whether to guarantee each others' borrowings in future, seen as essential if Greece exits the single currency.
The yen was little swayed after Japan on Wednesday logged a bigger-than-expected trade deficit of 520.3 billion yen in April, one day after Fitch downgraded the nation's credit rating on concerns over its public debt. (AFP)