EU hints at bailout plan, sets economy programme

BRUSSELS – The European Union (EU) will more tightly regulate the economies of its 27 members to safeguard the stability of nations using the euro currency and fend off threats like Greece’s debt crisis, the commission president said yesterday.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said the new measures would generate warnings if one country was heading off track, which might have flagged Greece’s soaring debt problem at an earlier stage.Markets fear that Greece could default on its heavy borrowings because it faces low growth in coming years and high public spending – which the government is now trying to curb. Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou announced more painful budget cuts yesterday that officials say will save the country a US$6,5 billion.He is asking EU leaders to back his economic strategy for the next 10 years at a March 25-26 summit and said he was confident that governments would drop previous objections over giving the EU more say in how they run their economies.He said there would be no sanctions for countries that aren’t hitting their targets – which could weaken the force of any EU warning.Barroso wants to set five overall targets for EU countries by 2020:•to boost employment from an average of 69 per cent to 75 per cent of all Europeans aged 20-64;•to increase how many young people gain a college degree from 30 per cent to 40 per cent;•to increase research spending by governments and companies to three per cent of gross domestic product;•to reduce the number of people living in poverty from 80 million to 60 million;•to generate more renewable power and reduce energy consumption as part of the EU’s ambition to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. – Nampa-AP