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Roundup: French FinMin discusses EC investment plan with Lithuanian counterpart

Xinhua, March 28, 2015 Adjust font size:

French Finance Minister Michel Sapin was here on Friday to discuss with his Lithuanian counterpart, Rimantas Sadzius, the European Commission's (EC) investment plan, aimed to kick-start the European economy, among other topics.

"A subject that unites us is support for investments, attracting investment, and the so-called (Jean-Claude) Juncker plan," Sapin said after meeting with Sadzius.

"In this respect, we have absolutely the same opinion regarding both the principles and measures to ensure the fastest possible and most efficient implementation of the Juncker plan by the end of this year," Sapin added.

EC president Jean-Claude Juncker unveiled his plan last year, claiming the initiative would unlock private and public investments in the real economy to the tune of at least 315 billion euros (about 344 billion U.S. dollars) over the next three years.

According to the plan, private investors would be attracted by the establishment of the 21-billion-euro European Fund for Strategic Investments, 5 billion euros of which comes from the European Investment Bank (EIB) and another 16 billion euros from the EU budget.

Sapin also discussed the quantitative easing stimulus program, started earlier this month by the European Central Bank (ECB), with Vitas Vasiliauskas, board chairman of the Bank of Lithuania, on Friday.

"Although the ECB's program implementation is only gaining momentum, the expectations associated with it already had a positive effect - improvement in conditions of loans to businesses and households, a decrease in the number of euro area sovereign bonds, including Lithuania's, and interest rates," Vasiliauskas said in the bank's statement.

The need for the single currency bloc countries to comply with fiscal discipline and rapid implementation of labor market and structural reforms was discussed as well.

By way of example, Sapin brought up the situation in financially-strapped Greece. Sapin insisted that Greece should stay within the euro zone.

"The euro zone has been created to expand and not to contract," the minister was quoted as saying by BNS news agency. Endit