European Union finance ministers are unlikely to move this week on a plan to deal with the economic fallout of war in Iraq but will wait until the consequences are clearer, a senior EU official said.
He said the ministers may pledge that the bloc will co-ordinate its response on the economic front - something the EU has failed to do in its efforts to prevent war.
The finance ministers meet on Wednesday ahead of a March 20th-21st EU summit sure to be dominated by the economic and political impact of a war. The summit is a long-scheduled one, officially supposed to focus on European economic reforms.
One area in which EU ministers could co-operate is the management of strategic oil reserves, which could be freed up in a co-ordinated move to ease price pressures if any supply bottlenecks arise, the EU official said.
The ministers may also agree not to take any unilateral action on taxes and avoid a repeat of 2000 when some governments single-handedly tried to soften the impact of surging oil prices with tax breaks.
