Europe announces 200bn euro plan

Europe announces 200bn euro plan

news.bbc.co.uk

The European Commission has unveiled an economic recovery plan worth 200bn euros (£170bn) which it hopes will save millions of European jobs.

The EC expects member states to contribute 170bn euros while the European Union will give 30bn euros.

Some of the money will be used for job training, improving energy links and broadband access, and developing less polluting cars.

The Commission's proposals include at least five billion euros to help the car industry develop green technologies...

(visit the link for the full news article)



Related AboveTopSecret.com Discussion Threads:
US Fed announces $800bn stimulus

There does seem to be some originality in these plans: job training, energy security, green technology, etc. (Not sure about the prioritization of broadband - how does this address the current economic crisis?)

One area of concern does emerge:

The requirement to hold public deficits below 3% of GDP in individual EU countries should be eased, France's Nicolas Sarkozy and Germany's Angela Merkel said in a joint newspaper article.

But Mr Barroso said the Commission was not planning to revise EU budget rules.

"We are not going to introduce greater flexibility. The stability pact already has flexibility in it," he said.

The Franco-German axis has a history of getting its own way, and increasing the limit on public deficits does not sound terribly prudent.

However overall this does look like it will be given a warmer welcome than yesterday's $800,000,000,000 US stimulus package.





news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)