Juncker: Europe does not need to implement further recovery packages

Special Report:Global Financial Crisis

BRUSSELS, March 9 (Chinese media) -- Finance ministers from the 16 nations sharing the euro agreed here on Monday that the zone needed not to take any further efforts to stimulate the economy as the United States has called, Eurogroup Chairman Jean-Claude Juncker said.

"The 16 euro area ministers agreed that the recent American appeals insisting that Europeans make additional budgetary effort to combat the effect of the crisis was not to our liking," he told a press conference after a meeting with Eurozone finance ministers.

"We are not prepared to go further in the recovery packages that we put together," Juncker said. "We are not giving the impression that we are considering implementing further recovery packages."

"Europe and the Eurogroup have done what needed to do" as the recovery package accounted for 3.3 percent to 4.0 percent of the GDP of the European Union, he said.

"We want to see what the effect of the packages are going to be" as the effect will come to light gradually.

Europe did not want to pile deficit on deficit, he said. "We need an exit strategy."

Lawrence Summers, a leading economics advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama, called on governments to inject more public fund into their economies to reactivate demand.

The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, released a recovery package in November worth about 200 billion euros (about 251.29 billion U.S. dollars) to stimulate the economy in the face of the global financial crisis.

But so far the euro zone finance ministers saw little sign of recovery.

Juncker said that the economic situation was "extremely gloomy" and the recession was "certainly deeper than in the 1990s."

European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs Joaquin Almunia told the same press conference that Romania has asked for help from the EU and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

"We will need to estimate financial needs and on the other hand to establish a list of conditions to send the financial support needed," Almunia said.

Negotiations with Romania would start in the next few days, he said.

Latvia and Hungary were the first batch of EU countries to receive emergency funds from the EU and IMF.

Eurozone finance ministers agreed that the IMF's fund to help economies, which have been hit hard by the financial crisis, should be increased.

A draft statement that 27-nation EU finance ministers are to adopt on Tuesday urges the IMF to double its assistance fund to 500 billion U.S. dollars, reports here said on Monday.