BRUSSELS (MNI) - European Union rules on debt and deficits should be incorporated into each member state's national law, leading business lobby group Business Europe said on Friday.

"An individual obligation towards discipline and stability, and a collective drive to reform, are essential," BusinessEurope's President Jurgen Thumann wrote in a letter to Belgian Prime Minister Yves Leterme, who currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.

FRANKFURT (MNI) - The idea of Greece leaving the Eurozone is "absurd" and would only serve to increase the country's debt burden, European Central Bank Executive Board member Lorenzo Bini Smaghi said Thursday.

ATHENS (MNI) - Greek government revenues remained well below target in August, according to preliminary data released Friday by the Finance Minister.

Revenues for the first eight months of the year posted a modest annual rise of 3.3%, compared to the full-year target for a rise of 13.5% in the accord for IMF-EU loans signed in May.

FRANKFURT (MNI) - Germany will sell E2 billion in a top up of its June-2011 maturity bubill, the Bundesbank confirmed Friday.

The formal tender offer will be announced next Friday, September 17. Bids are due by 0900 GMT on Monday, September 20, with results of the allocation to be announced shortly thereafter.

The bubills will settle on Wednesday, September 22, 2010 and mature on June 29, 2011.

FRANKFURT (MNI) - The German federal government is seeking bids for a E5 billion sale of new 6-month bubills, the Bundesbank confirmed Friday.

Bids are due by 0900 GMT on Monday, September 13. The announcement of the auction results will be made shortly thereafter.

The bubills will settle on Wednesday, September 15, 2010 and mature on March 16, 2011.

By Emma Charlton

BRUSSELS (MNI) - The European Commission is set to revise upward its forecasts for growth this year when it updates its projections on September 13, economists said.

In its previous set of forecasts, published in May, the Commission predicted Eurozone annual gross domestic product growth of 0.9% this year after a contraction of 4.1% in 2009. That now looks out of date after second quarter growth steamed ahead, powered by Germany.

BERLIN (MNI) - The Institute for the World Economy (IfW), one of the Germany's leading economics research institutes, expects German federal net new borrowing to amount to E53 billion in 2010 and E50 billion in 2011, IfW economist Alfred Boss told German business daily Handelsblatt in an interview published Friday.

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said recently he expects federal net new borrowing of below E60 billion this year, down from the previously forecast E65.2 billion.

FRANKFURT (MNI) - Neither inflation nor deflation risks are likely to materialize in the Eurozone, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet told the Financial Times in an interview pre-released Thursday.

The mood at present in regard to the United States economy is overly negative, said Trichet, who told the paper the ECB will gradually phase out its non-standard measures as markets stabilize.