Italy's goal of refinancing some 90 billion euros of long-term debt by the end of April is beginning to look within reach after months when the weight of its debt burden looked likely to tip the euro zone even deeper into crisis, Reuters reported.

In spite of this month's mass downgrade of most euro countries by credit rating agency Standard & Poor's, Madrid romped through a debt sale with support from cheap ECB lending to banks and steady interest from domestic investors.

The same factors should also help Rome.

Saddled with a 1.9 trillion euro ($2.5 trillion) public debt, Italy is the euro zone's third largest economy and investors have long feared it may prove too big to bail.

The amount of debt it must refinance between February and April looked almost unmanageable in November after international investors fled Italian bonds, driving even the country's three-year borrowing costs to nearly 8 percent.

But a fall in short-term yields after Italian banks awash with cheap ECB funds snapped up domestic bonds at recent sales has improved the market picture for Italy, now rated among the lower investment grades at BBB+ by S&P, on a par with bailed-out fellow struggler Ireland.