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Polish PM invites eastern, central EU leaders to crisis talks

Other News Materials 19 February 2009 16:22 (UTC +04:00)

The Polish prime minister has invited the leaders of central and eastern EU states to discuss the region's economic challenges ahead of a March 1 EU-wide summit, European Voice said on Thursday, RIA Novosti reported.

The paper said Donald Tusk had also invited Jose Manuel Barroso, the president of the European Commission, to join the leaders of the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia in Brussels on the morning of the summit. The main EU summit is to begin at lunchtime.

"The idea would be to make sure that the EU's response to the crisis is an answer for the EU27, and not just for some member states," Mikolaj Dowgielewicz, Poland's minister for Europe, told European Voice. "The particular situation of these countries, the new member states, must be taken into account."

Andrius Kubilius, the prime minister of Lithuania, said he hoped EU leaders would formulate a common approach to the problems caused by the global financial crisis.

"What is needed is more co-ordination, a European approach to solving the situation in central and eastern Europe, both in countries which are members of the EU and outside the EU - Ukraine, for instance," he told European Voice.

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