Hopes that a deal between Greece and its creditors could be cobbled together in time to avoid a messy Greek exit from the euro sent stock markets across Europe sharply higher on Wednesday.
At around 7 a.m. ET, the CAC-40 in France was up 2.5 percent at 4,908 while Germany's DAX rose 2.1 percent to 11,171. The FTSE 100 index of leading European shares was 1.4 percent higher at 6,613.
Wall Street was poised for solid gains with both Dow futures and the broader S&P 500 futures up 0.8 percent.
The gains in Europe come despite Greece's failure Tuesday to get an agreement to extend its bailout program with European creditors and its failure to make a roughly 1.6 billion-euro debt repayment due to the International Monetary Fund.
The hopes have been stirred by a two-page letter sent to Greece's creditors on Tuesday by Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras. In it, he appears to be making big concessions in a request for a new bailout deal.
However, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble appeared to pour cold water on the prospects of any deal, certainly before Sunday's planned referendum on recent creditor proposals.