EU finance ministers today ruled out a coordinated package to reboot the European economy despite mounting evidence of recession in key countries.
The 27 ministers, meeting informally under the French EU presidency, are at most expected to discuss measures - such as reduced rates of VAT - to help poorer people hurt by rising inflation and soaring food and energy prices.
Peer Steinbrück, German finance minister and apostle of budgetary discipline, said: "I am against a European economic stimulus programme." Germany fears relaxing fiscal constraints could mark a return to 1970s-style stagflation.
Earlier this week the European commission slashed its forecast for EU growth this year from 2% to 1.4%, with Britain, Germany and Spain headed for recession.
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EU finance chiefs still see no end in sight to crisis
The crisis roiling the financial sector will probably grind on for some time, but European banks should be able to avert serious trouble, EU finance chiefs said.
US investment bank Lehman Brothers' fight for its very survival over the weekend highlighted just how fragile the sector remains more than one year after the crisis first broke.
"Everybody who was saying for the last few weeks that the light was at the end of the tunnel have had the surprise of finding a locomotive bearing down on them," said German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck on Saturday.
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