EU’s Barroso plans more euro zone cooperation

Jose Manuel Barroso vowed on Thursday to work to boost cooperation within the euro currency zone if he is elected for a second five-year term as president of the European Commission, the European Union's executive body.

In a policy document sent to the European Parliament and obtained by Reuters, Barroso said increased cooperation was needed eventually to withdraw fiscal stimuli with which governments have battled the worst economic crisis in decades.

But it was too early to scrap those measures.

"Under my leadership, the Commission will use the full range of possibilities in the (EU) treaty to strengthen the convergence of objectives and the coherence of the effects of economic policy, particularly in the euro area," he wrote