EU to set up phone service for financial emergencies

FINANCE MINISTERS facing market meltdown have a new number to call day or night for help as part of EU efforts to avoid ill-thought responses that could upset neighbouring states and break the bloc's rules.

EU leaders last week agreed to set up a financial crisis unit as they apply lessons learnt from the worst market crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The need to speed up and improve co-ordination among authorities in times of crisis is a key aim.

"The financial crisis unit is based on a warning device that sets off a conference call among officials . . . with a short advance warning of one hour and at any time," said an EU presidency document setting out the new system.

The unit is being set up this week and will be organised by the secretariat of the council of EU states, the document said.

"The secretariat is tasked with distributing a dedicated telephone number open seven days a week, 24 hours a day," it said without listing the new number.

The unit comprises representatives of the council, the European Central Bank (ECB), the European Commission and the 15-nation euro group.

A call to the unit will lead to a conference call with the member state concerned. The unit's role is to: ensure a speedy response to a member state; make a preliminary assessment of measures considered; inform other EU states; and enable good co-ordination of actions being undertaken.

The information gathered from the call would be distributed to central bankers via the ECB and EU states. "The unit suggests, where measures are foreseen, the convening of competent authorities to take the necessary decisions," the document said.

Separately, European Commission president José Manuel Barroso called yesterday for an "unprecedented" exercise in global co-operation to deal with the current international financial crisis.

Mr Barroso also urged China to play an important role in decisions taken to try to resolve the crisis, which he said was an opportunity for China to show "a sense of responsibility".

He was speaking ahead of a two-day summit in Beijing of the 43-nation Asia-Europe Meeting, a dialogue that has yielded few results in the past but which has taken on considerable importance this year because of the crisis.

"We need a co-ordinated global response to reform the global financial system. We are living in unprecedented times, and we need unprecedented levels of global co-ordination," Mr Barroso said.

"I very much hope that China gives an important contribution to the solution of this financial crisis."

In the run-up to the Beijing summit, French president Nicolas Sarkozy, the holder of the European Union's rotating presidency, has also urged China and India to play a larger part in redrawing the global financial system.

Chinese leaders have repeated in recent weeks that they want to be seen as responsible participants in the international financial system, and indicated that they did not have any plans to sell their huge holdings of US treasury bonds.