EU to Endorse Deregulation

The European Union will end its flirtation with government-funded job creation policies when finance ministers meet today to endorse deregulation, wage restraint and the expansion of stock markets as ways of spurring the economy, officials said. New economic guidelines bear the stamp of market-oriented reformers such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair and distance the 15-nation bloc from the job-creation and income-boosting approach championed by Germany’s former Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine. Promotion of venture capital, limits on budget deficits and more deregulation of the energy, transport and telecommunications industries are key parts of the recipe to combat the slowdown in EU economic growth to an estimated 2.1% in 1999 from 2.7% last year.