European Union finance ministers have told the United States that it is not doing enough to halt the steep decline of the dollar against other currencies, including the euro. Luxembourg's prime minister, Mr Jean Claude Juncker, who chairs the group of euro-zone finance ministers, complained that Europe was bearing the brunt of the dollar's weakness and that the US was not heeding calls for help.

Mr Juncker was speaking as EU finance ministers met in Brussels for a discussion dominated by proposed reforms to the Stability and Growth Pact. The Minister for Finance, Mr Cowen, said that the ministers agreed that the EU needed the pact but that a number of countries supported the Republic's call for countries with low public debt and urgent infrastructure needs to be given more budgetary leeway.

"It will be some time yet before final conclusions are reached. We support the Stability and Growth Pact. We also take the view that the pact should be operated so that member-states with low levels of debt would be afforded greater flexibility where infrastructural investment is concerned," he said.

The ministers agreed to put off further discussion of reforming the pact until Luxembourg takes over the EU presidency in January and Mr Juncker acknowledged that they were far from agreeing on how to change it.

In a joint statement, the ministers called on Greece to take all necessary measures to bring its budget deficit below the pact's limit of 3 per cent of gross domestic product.