Looming EU oil sanctions against Iran will result in a higher cost for Europe, Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi warned on Thursday ahead of the OPEC cartel's latest output meeting in Vienna.

"Of course we might face some problems, but for sure ... the European citizens will pay more costs," Qasemi told reporters in Vienna, when asked about the sanctions which will apply from July 1.

Finland's Nokia, one of the world's biggest mobile phone makers, announced Thursday that it planned to cut up to 10,000 jobs by the end of next year due to massive additional cost-savings measures.

"These planned reductions are a difficult consequence of the intended actions we believe we must take to ensure Nokia's long-term competitive strength," company chief executive Stephen Elop said in a statement.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday that the Eurozone crisis would dominate next week's G20 summit but warned world leaders that her powers to act were limited.

In a speech to lawmakers ahead of the meeting of G20 leaders in Los Cabos, Mexico on June 18-19, Merkel warned Europe could not take the easy way out with solutions based on "mediocrity" that failed to address core problems.

Moody's on Wednesday cut the credit rating of Cyprus by two notches, citing the nation's close links to Greece and the rising likelihood that Athens will exit the Eurozone.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded Cyprus's government bond ratings to Ba3 from Ba1, and placed the ratings on review for further possible downgrade.

The euro was steady in Asian trade Thursday despite a credit rating downgrade of Spain as markets look to weekend Greek elections seen as pivotal to the country's future in the Eurozone.

The single currency bought $1.2569 in Tokyo morning trade, compared with $1.2557 in New York late Wednesday, while it was little changed at 99.74 yen, from 99.78 yen.

The United States is seeing a dramatic surge in oil and gas production and could overtake the world's biggest producers, Russia and Saudi Arabia, in another decade, a U.S. official said here Tuesday.

"Some of the numbers are eye-popping," Daniel Sullivan, commissioner in Alaska's department of natural resources, told a panel of experts at the International Economic Forum of the Americas in Montreal.

The world's number one clothing group, Inditex, owner of the Zara brand, said on Wednesday it had leveraged its expanding international operations to boost sales and net profit.

Sales for the Spanish group, now present in 85 countries, climbed 15 percent from the figure for the same period a year earlier to 3.416 billion euros ($4.3 billion) in the three months to the end of April.

Kuwait's Oil Minister Hani Hussein said on Wednesday that OPEC will "most likely" maintain its production at 30 million barrels per day, but admitted differences among member countries.

"There are different directions before the OPEC ministerial meeting," on Thursday, the official KUNA news agency quoted Hussein as saying in Vienna where the meeting will take place.

Spanish borrowing costs have soared to a euro-era record high on a market beset by doubts over a vast rescue loan for the country's banks and by fears of a Greek exit from the Eurozone.

The euro came under more pressure in early trading Wednesday, unconvinced by the deal struck by the 17 Eurozone nations over the weekend to extend Spain a banking sector rescue loan of up 100 billion euros ($125 billion).

An anti-austerity radical, a conservative bruiser or a socialist trying to change his stripes -- Greece seems spoilt for choice ahead of Sunday's election but the real decision is on economic survival.

In reality, the campaign decision boils down to whether the country will reject a tough EU-IMF recovery program tied to bailout loans, or seek merely to renegotiate some of its more painful provisions.