Ministers for Finance of the 18-member euro area met Monday evening in Luxembourg for their regular meeting and discussed the economic situation in Europe.

Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, Jeroen Dijsselbloem, President of the Eurogroup said "the most important issues that we discussed on our agenda today were the economic situation for the Eurozone, investments, and developments in a number of Member States.

"As you heard coming from the discussions from Washington only a couple of days ago there are serious concerns about the pace of global recovery, in particular the low growth and the inflation environment in the Euro area," he said.

"At the same time we are still expected to do better than last year in terms of economic growth and recovery to pick up further. There was broad consensus amongst ministers that the current situation is however not satisfactory and requires strong policy actions from governments to do structural reforms, fiscal policy and investments by Member States," he stated.

"Today we also prepared the Eurozone Summit which is going to take place on 24 October, where I will report to our leaders on the Eurogroup's deliberations on the economic situation," he added.

On his part, Jyrki Katainen, EU Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs told the joint press conference that "the recovery in Europe is still underway. However, the data we have seen since the summer point to a recovery that is more fragile than was expected in the Spring.

"That's why we need an ambitious policy response, based on: credible fiscal policies, ambitious structural reforms, and using all available tools to boost investment in Europe," he said

Source: KUNA