Re-Focusing :EU summit on economy in Italy Hollande

PARIS: French President Francois Hollande announced on Saturday that EU leaders would hold a summit in Italy in early October aimed at boosting growth and jobs in the bloc. “We supported the proposal of (Italian Prime Minister) Matteo Renzi to have a summit of the 28 (EU member states) in Italy on October 6,” Hollande told reporters after a meeting of centre-left leaders in Paris. He said the summit would be followed by a gathering of eurozone leaders “if our partners accept”. The centre-left leaders in Paris “agreed that Europe should be geared more than it is today towards growth and jobs,” Hollande said. Hollande also called for a “relaxing” of the European Central Bank’s monetary policy. France has promised the EU it will get its budget deficit below the bloc’s limit of 3% of GDP by the end of next year but this looks increasingly difficult given zero growth in the eurozone’s second-largest economy.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 31^st, 2014.

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