The European Central Bank should take decisive action at its meeting on Thursday and cut interest rates to help Europe's faltering economic recovery, an influential European Union lawmaker said today.
The call for a rate cut by Ms Christa Randzio-Plath, chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, comes on the heels of similar calls by German President Gerhard Schroeder and French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin.
Ms Randzio-Plath said the lack of sympathy by other Group of Seven nations at the meeting in early February over the problems posed by the strong euro meant Europe had to take action on its own.
"We Europeans are disappointed by the results of the summit, in particular the stance by the US, China and Japan, which in essence say that a strong euro is our problem, not theirs. Therefore, if we cannot count on the collaboration of others, we must take action ourselves."
She also described currency volatility as a threat.
"Currency volatility is the greatest danger to the real economy and to the whole process of globalisation. Any efforts to increase productivity by our economies are wiped clean in one go whenever currencies swing from one extreme to the other," she said.