EU to Assure G7 of Solid Growth in 2001British finance minister Gordon Brown said Monday that the European members of the Group of Seven (G7) would be able to assure a G7 summit this weekend that the region would do its duty for world growth.Brown told reporters during a regular monthly meeting of European Union (EU) finance ministers that their message to G7 would be "how Europe is achieving probably above 3 percent growth this year that is necessary to keep world growth on track." G7 finance ministers are scheduled to gather in Palermo, Italy on Saturday to ponder the deteriorating outlook for the global economy after an unexpected slowdown in US growth. Brown has said that Europe had a duty to do its best to achieve strong growth to counterbalance what he called a "necessary" slowdown in the US after its record expansion. The EU finance ministers at their meeting in Brussels mainly discussed the EU's Broad Economic Policy Guidelines, with a particular focus on the content of a key issues paper for the EU summit in Stockholm in March and progress made in the practical introduction of the euro. |
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