The Taoiseach Enda Kenny is meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel amid claims by a British MEP that the eurozone crisis has produced a "German-dominated Europe".

The European Commission has slashed its eurozone growth forecast for next year.

Eurozone leaders have asked Greece's incoming government to approve in writing the terms of a bailout in exchange for the release of fresh bailout funds later this month.

A senior European Commission official says a deal to address the Greek debt crisis is relatively close.

GROWTH has stalled, the recovery evident earlier this year has halted and the risks for the future are high, the EU warned in its half-year review.

EUROPEAN finance ministers have been warned confidentially of the danger of a renewed credit crunch as a “systemic” crisis in eurozone sovereign debt spills over to banks.

A spokesman for Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn has said the aim of the EU-IMF bailout was to stabilise the euro as much as to support the Irish economy.

THE EU wants the Government to spell out in November the spending cuts and tax increases it will make over the next four years to reduce the massive 32% budget deficit caused by the bank bailout.

AN EU recovery plan including measures to cushion the impact of the economic downturn on the real economy, and especially on jobs, is being drawn up by the European Commission.

THE Irish health sector was singled out by the EU yesterday as an area of concern in terms of controlling the national budget and getting value for money.