Euro slips as eurozone crisis lingers

In early Monday trade in Tokyo, the euro fell to $1.3372 and 103.98 yen after some investors placed stop-loss sell orders, AFP reported.

The decline comes in the wake of a warning by the ratings agency Standard & Poor's that 15 eurozone members including Germany and France could face possible credit downgrades.

Meanwhile, Europe's leaders are to meet on the bloc's fiscal crisis later this week following a European Union (EU) summit in Brussels on Thursday and Friday.

During the EU summit, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel called for stringent rules to manage eurozone members' accounts, uniform tough budget standards and automatic sanctions against member states whose budget deficits rise above three percent of the gross domestic product.

A string of half-measures agreed too late by European leaders over nearly two years have failed to stop the bond market contagion spreading from Greece to Ireland and Portugal and now to Italy and Spain.