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MSCI's broadest index of Asia Pacific shares outside Japan was down 0.1 percent, while Japan's Nikkei stock average .N225 fell 0.5 percent.

U.S. stock index futures opened higher after Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou and opposition leader Antonis Samaras agreed on a new coalition government to approve the bailout plan, which requires painful fiscal reform, before elections.

Papandreou and Samaras had been scrambling to reach a deal before finance ministers of euro countries meet in Brussels later on Monday, to show that Greece is serious about taking steps needed to stave off bankruptcy.

Political wrangling in Greece had sparked panic in global financial markets on fears that it would fail to save the country from defaulting and to stop the sovereign debt crisis from spreading to other countries in the euro zone.

While Greece has for now managed to stay on track to reduce its huge debt, market jitters remain over a lack of funding to beef up the bailout fund after the euro zone failed to get any concrete pledge for new money at a G20 summit on Friday.

Investors were also shifting their attention to another debt-burdened country, Italy, putting it under pressure to swiftly restore its credibility on financial markets.

"We believe what will matter more for markets in the near term is the relatively disappointing outcome of the G20 meeting, given the lack of progress on backstop facilities," Barclays Capital analysts said in a report.

"Any further rise in Italian yields and spreads would make us very cautious about cross-market implications for risk assets," they said.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said Italy would welcome quarterly IMF monitoring of pension and labor market reforms and privatizations he had promised to implement.

Leaders of the world's major economies deferred until next year any move to provide more crisis-fighting resources to the International Monetary Fund.

The euro fell 0.3 percent to below $1.38 against the dollar while safe-haven U.S. Treasury futures trimmed earlier losses as riskier stocks wavered.

A retreat in investor appetite for riskier assets helped safe-haven government bonds, with U.S. Treasury futures down 2.5/32 at 130-05.5/32 from 130-08/32 late on Friday in New York. It was down to around 130 in early Asia on Monday.

Italy is the third largest economy in the euro zone with the biggest government bond market. With debt levels stuck at 120 percent of GDP, the country's debt problems would pose a much bigger risk to the financial markets than Greece.

Italy's borrowing costs have been rising sharply over the past several weeks.

Italian 10-year government bond yields hit record highs of around 6.4 percent on Friday, as the spread of Italian 10-year yields over Bunds scaled a new lifetime high.

(Editing by Mark Bendeich)

Forged in the fire of a bond market inferno, the shadowy so-called Frankfurt Group has grabbed the helm of the 17-nation currency area in a few short weeks.

The inner circle comprises the leaders of Germany and France, the presidents of the executive European Commission and of the European Council of EU leaders, the heads of the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the chairman of euro zone finance ministers, and the European Commissioner for economic and financial affairs.

Europe's new politburo met four times on the sidelines of last week's Group of 20 summit in Cannes, issuing an ultimatum to Greece that it would not get a cent more aid until it met its European commitments, and arm-twisting Italy to carry out long delayed economic reforms and let the IMF monitor them.

In a tell-tale recognition of the new ad hoc power center, members wore lapel badges marked "Groupe de Francfort."

U.S. President Barack Obama attended one of the meetings, getting what he joked was a "crash course" in the complexity of Europe's laborious decision-making processes and institutions.

"He proved to be a quick learner," one participant said.

Two people familiar with the discussion said he argued for the euro zone to make its financial backstop more credible by harnessing the resources of the ECB, but German Chancellor Angela Merkel and ECB President Mario Draghi resisted.

Obama also supported a proposal to pool euro zone countries' rights to borrow from the IMF to help bolster a firewall against contagion from the Greek debt crisis, but Germany's central bank opposed this too, the sources said.

The president referred obliquely to the debate at a news conference the next day, saying: "European leaders understand that ultimately what the markets are looking for is a strong signal from Europe that they're standing behind the euro."

Hours earlier, a television camera in the Cannes summit conference room caught Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron discussing the issue while waiting for the start of the final working session.

Cameron, whose country is not in the euro, has called publicly for the ECB to act as the lender of last resort for the euro zone, as the Federal Reserve does for the United States, and the Bank of England for Britain.

When Merkel entered the room, Obama pulled her aside for a private conversation. An open microphone caught his opening words: "I guess you guys have to be creative here."

ON THE HOOF

The Frankfurt Group came about on the hoof to try to fashion a crisis response in something closer to the short timespan of frantic financial markets.

It seems destined to endure, not least because the growing imbalance between a stronger Germany and a weaker France means other players are needed to broker decisions.

Crucially, it aims to bridge the ideological gulf between northern and southern Europe, and between supporters of the orthodox German focus on fiscal discipline and an independent central bank with the sole task of fighting inflation, and advocates of a more integrated and expansive economic and monetary union.

The presence of IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde gives the group greater credibility in the markets, as well as providing a reality check on what international lenders expect and the limits to their willingness to support the euro zone.

It all began with a blazing row at the Old Opera House in Frankfurt on October 19 that spoiled Jean-Claude Trichet's farewell party after eight years as president of the ECB.

As the fallout from Greece's debt crisis singed European banks and panicky investors dumped euro zone government bonds, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who had snubbed the ceremony in honor of Trichet, flew in at the last minute to meet a visibly irritated Merkel.

Sarkozy himself said that day that France and Germany were at odds over how to leverage the euro zone's financial rescue fund. The French wanted to let the European Financial Stability Facility operate as a bank and borrow money from the ECB.

"In Germany, the coalition is divided on this issue. It is not just Angela Merkel whom we need to convince," Sarkozy told lawmakers, according to Charles de Courson, who was present.

At the Frankfurt meeting, described by one participant as "explosive," Merkel and Trichet firmly opposed the idea, which they said would violate the European Union's treaty prohibition on the central bank financing governments.

Germany insisted on that clause when the ECB was created because of its own history of fiscal abuse of the central bank that fueled hyperinflation in the 1920s and funded the Nazis' massive rearmament in the run up to World War Two.

As French officials tell it, Merkel is not so hostile to the proposal as her finance minister, Wolfgang Schaeuble, and the head of the German Bundesbank, Jens Weidmann.

The French are convinced that Merkel understands the ECB will have to be more centrally involved in fighting bond market contagion, but she cannot get it through her divided coalition for now. They see the ECB as the main center of resistance.

After hearing a chorus of Obama, Cameron and the leaders of India, Canada and Australia at the G20, Merkel acknowledged that the rest of the world found it hard to understand that the ECB was not allowed to play the role of lender of last resort.

But the crisis may have to get still worse before the Germans and the ECB relent, if they ever do.

LEGITIMACY VS EFFICACY

The Frankfurt Group has already had an impact in euro zone crisis management but like all informal core groups it has begun to stir resentment among those who are excluded, and it has yet to prove its ability to craft a convincing longer-term solution.

North European creditor countries such as the Netherlands, Slovakia and Finland, where public hostility to further euro zone bailouts is fierce, are already grumbling about decisions being taken behind their backs.

In Greece and Italy, there has been strong criticism of the perceived arrogance of "Merkozy," as the Franco-German duumvirate are increasingly nicknamed, in summoning their prime ministers to receive ultimatums.

German and French officials shrug off such complaints as inevitable, noting that EU partners are even more unhappy when France and Germany do not agree, since that paralyses Europe.

"There is always a trade-off between legitimacy and efficacy," said an EU official involved in the Frankfurt Group. "The euro area institutions were not designed for crisis management so we need innovative solutions.

"In an emergency like this, we have to have a structure that works," he said, adding that the presence of the European Commission and of European Council President Herman Van Rompuy guaranteed that the interests of smaller member states would be taken into account.

EU officials had held conference calls with the 15 other euro zone states during the Cannes summit "to keep them in the loop." The head of the EFSF, Klaus Regling, was secretly flown to Cannes to brief the leaders on the state of accelerated preparations to leverage the rescue fund, one source said.

Merkel long resisted French pressure to create more of an "economic government" in the euro zone, not least because she did not want Germany to be in a minority on issues such as bailouts, free trade or the EU budget.

She also did not want to alienate German allies and neighbors such as Denmark, Poland and the Czech Republic, which are not in the euro zone.

But recent problems in smaller countries that aggravated market turmoil -- Finland's demand for collateral on loans to Greece and Slovakia's parliamentary wrangling over increasing the EFSF's powers -- convinced her of the need for stronger leadership to impose order.

Whether the Frankfurt Group will be the forum that finally convinces Germany to accept a bigger crisis-fighting role for the ECB, or the creation of jointly issued euro zone bonds, remains to be seen.

(Writing by Paul Taylor; editing by Janet McBride)

That may foreshadow a gloomy holiday season in markets, especially if wary investors opt to reduce risk in their portfolios and take refuge in U.S. Treasuries and the dollar.

Just weeks after it seemed leaders had drafted a master plan to solve the crisis, doubts rose about whether Greece would back a 130 billion-euro bailout.

And as politicians in Athens struggled to form a consensus government, Italian bond yields spiked to a euro-era high of 6.4 percent, raising fears that the country may soon need to follow Greece and others in seeking an emergency bailout.

"At the end of the day, it does seem like a grand plan is elusive at best," said David Ader, head of government bond strategy at CRT Capital Group in Stamford, Connecticut.

"We've seen one European bank and one U.S. brokerage fail. We know there are strains for French banks. We're wondering how long it will be before Greek default worries spread to Italy and Spain," he said. "In a situation like that, money managers are going to decide to simply take their risk down."

Investors are betting the market will see evidence of that as soon as this week, as flight-to-safety flows help boost U.S. Treasury debt, lift the dollar against the euro and weigh on stock markets around the world.

The biggest fear is that a disorderly default in Greece or elsewhere would ripple across the global financial market the same way the Lehman Brothers collapse did in 2008. That, investors fear, would probably be enough to plunge the global economy into recession.

"This is going to be pretty negative news for risk markets," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank in Chicago. "We are going to see a continued flight-to-quality tomorrow."

Benchmark U.S. 10-year note yields dropped more than 29 basis points in the past week and a half as worries about Europe overshadowed signs of economic improvement in America.

FADING RISK RALLIES

Ashraf Laidi, CEO of Intermarket Strategy in London, said he expected the euro to struggle again this week after losing nearly 3 percent against the dollar last week. By year end, he said it could fall below $1.30. It was around $1.38 Friday.

"This past week really raised some tricky questions," he said. "For the first time I can remember, the possibility that Greece really could leave the euro zone was being talked about in cafes and bars as well as on trading desks."

If Greece can cobble together a new unity government that backs the EU rescue plan, that might, "at least for a while, be a market-stabilizing factor," said Citigroup currency strategist Greg Anderson.

Prime Minister George Papandreou suggested Sunday he was ready to pass the baton.

But that is not likely to cheer investors much, meaning any rally in stocks or the euro will be shallow and brief.

"These 24-hour risk-on rallies, I don't know how much longer people are going to be willing to do that," said Ader. "Sell-offs are getting deeper because the rallies are only short-covering moves. People are not getting long and putting on bets that everything is suddenly OK."

FROM GREECE TO ITALY

Alan Ruskin, head of G10 currency strategy at Deutsche Bank in New York, said the focus is likely to shift from Greece to Italy fairly quickly in the weeks ahead, and that should mean more market volatility and unwillingness to take on risk.

Italy's debt-to-output ratio stands at 120 percent, second only to Greece in the 17-country euro zone, and its borrowing costs are rising.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi recently refused a loan offer by the International Monetary Fund and his government may be on the verge of collapse.

"Berlusconi says Italians are not feeling the crisis but that's because the European Central Bank has been providing high levels of liquidity at low interest rates and buying Italian bonds," Ruskin said. "That begs the question, should the ECB stop that to show them this is really a crisis?"

"I have to believe a lot of investors like me are thinking this could be the start of Italy week," said James Paulsen, chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis. "Italy is going to rapidly rise on investor radar screens and may be the bigger story."

(Additional reporting by Richard Leong, Daniel Bases, Karen Brettell and Julie Haviv in New York; editing by Bernard Orr)

Portugal, Ireland, Finland and Greece could all pull out of the euro zone rather than operate under a single treasury, Jim O'Neill, whose division manages more than $800 billion (500 billion pounds) of assets, was cited as saying.

He also called on the European Central Bank (ECB) to show more leadership to reassure "worried investors."

"The Germans want more fiscal unity and much tougher central observation -- with the idea of a finance ministry," O'Neill said.

"With that caveat, it is tough to see all countries that joined wanting to live with that - including the one that is so troubled here (Greece)."

He added that only countries such as Germany, France and Benelux, were suited for a monetary union because their exchange rates were closely linked. But for others, it was questionable.

O'Neill said countries such as Finland and Ireland that are neighbors of non-euro zone countries -- the UK and Sweden -- might prefer to quit the euro, which would bolster the strength of the single currency.

He added that the Brussels bailout deal will not solve the crisis and that the ECB needed to buy bonds.

Since the ECB resumed its bond buying programme (SMP) around three months ago it has purchased some 100 billion euros of government bonds, a majority of which are thought to be Italian BTPs.

Italy is seen as the next domino that could fall in the euro zone crisis, with yields on its 10-year bonds reaching 6.38 percent, close to the 7 percent threshold widely viewed as unsustainable.

A member of the ECB was reported on Saturday as saying it frequently debated the option of ending its purchases of Italian bonds unless Rome delivers on reforms.

O'Neill told BBC radio on Sunday that it will be "really interesting" to see how the markets react to the ECB's comments when they reopen on Monday.

He said the comments gave the impression the ECB was not an eager participant in trying to support the Italian bond market and bringing about stability.

"It would appear clear in that regard that they might also prefer a more of a unity type government to try and come up with a new economic policy for Italy," he said.

"But it is all very fragile and the markets are requiring a stronger leadership from within these countries as well as from the ECB."

(Reporting by Avril Ormsby and Lorraine Turner, Editing by Maureen Bavdek)