BRUSSELS, Dec 11: European Community leaders pulled back Saturday from an ambitious plan to raise new debt to fund jobs-creating public works but clung to a broad menu of cheaper ways' to turn around rising unemployment, reports AP.
The draft communique from the two-day summit of the 12 EC members was to be endorsed later in the day. A copy obtained by the Associated Press said the leaders approved jobs measures drawn up by EC chief executive Jacques Delors.
The draft, however, did not mention Delors' plan for multibillion dollar borrowing.
Led by Britain and Germany, leaders bashed key parts of the Fench-backed plan when It was introduced Friday, saying they couldn't endorse new debt when their countries are all trying to shrink deficits.
Unemployment in the EC is expected to rise from its current level of Just below 11 per cent — 17 million people Jobless — and Delors had been ordered to present a counterplan at the summit.
Meeting for the first time as the European Union, the lead ers firmed up the leadership of the future European central bank, called the European Monetary Institute in Its formative stage
The draft communique said international banker Alexandre Larnfalussy, a Belgian, will head the institute for three years starting January 1. The institute is to develop the common European currency that is envisioned to be in circulation by 1999. The EC leaders also rub-ber _ .imped economic guidelines so that their economies Will perform similarly — if all goes according to plan.
The two-day summit was vexed by the difficult world trade talks in Geneva, where the EC and the United State hit new problems as the Wednesday deadline approaches for completion of a new general Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
Though the Belgian hosts tried to keep trade off the agenda, it surfaced at dinner. The leaders decided to ask their negotiators to drop the contentious issue of maritime shipping from GATT, said Dutch Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers.
And French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said France insisted on protection for the European film Industry against Hollywood. "We can't accept that what Is already the domination of one industry becomes the total monopoly," Juppe told reporters late Friday.
Juppe expressed confidence
that the other EC members would guarantee compensation for farmers hurt by a new ECUS agreement on farm subsidy cuts, and a senior German official said the issue would be looked at favourably.
Germany has a long record of backing France financially in helping get ftc compromises through.
Summit leaders also spent time on violence In Northern Ireland and former Yugoslavia. British Prime Minister John Major and his Irish counterpart. Albert Reynolds, said they hoped their bilateral meeting will help bring a peace formula to Northern Ireland by Christmas.
On Yugoslavia, the leaders issued yet another plead for peace in Bosnia and scheduled for December 22 a face-to-face meeting in Brussels between EC foreign ministers and the war ring Bosnian factions,
EC delegations Friday praised parts of Delors' almost 200 page white paper” on Jobcreation, though the suggestion of having the EC issue eight bil lion European currency units (8.8 billion dollar) worth of special bonds was brusquely put down by Germany. Britain and others.
The Delors plan cautlohs against pump-priming deficits to create jobs quickly.