Brussels - The countries that use the European Union's single currency, the euro, are so divided on the question of issuing common bonds that there is no realistic chance of creating them at present, the EU's top official said Wednesday.

"The idea is interesting, but there is very, very clear opposition from a large number of member states," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso told journalists in Brussels.

Brussels - The European Union's top official on Wednesday challenged member states to set up an EU-wide system for overseeing its financial markets at once, rather than waiting three years as originally proposed.

A report published last week by former International Monetary Fund chief Jacques de Larosiere called for the creation of such a system after three years' trial, but "we say this should be done immediately," European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso said.

Brussels - The presence of more women in the workplace could help lift the European Union out of recession and mitigate the impact of future financial crises, officials in Brussels said Tuesday.

"Discrimination produces inefficiency. And it is precisely during times of crises that we should be most active," said European Equals Opportunity Commissioner Vladimir Spidla at the launch of a European campaign against the gender pay gap.

Brussels - The European Parliament has set the scene for a showdown with other European institutions and with the rest of the world by approving a strict import and trading ban on seals products.

In a vote held late Monday, a parliamentary committee agreed to limit the exemptions to a ban proposed by the European Commission by 25 votes in favour and seven against. It also ignored the view of their rapporteur, who had proposed a form of labelling rather than an outright ban.

Seal derivatives are found in a variety of products, including bags, motorcyclists' gloves and Omega 3 fatty acid supplements.

Brussels - The 20-year-old man suspected of killing two toddlers and a teacher in a knife attack at a Belgian nursery in January has confessed to the murder of a pensioner.

Kim De Gelder admitted his involvement in the death of 73-year-old Elza Van Raemdonck de Vrasene during a court hearing, the Belga news agency reported Tuesday.

Belgian investigators had linked the young man to the death of the pensioner - found stabbed to death in her home in the East Flemish town of Beveren on the evening of January 16 - not long after his arrest over the January 23 kindergarten massacre.

Liege, Belgium - An old industrial centre in a former coal-mining area, Liege is giving itself a bit of a face-lift these days. Its new Grand Curtius museum complex opens on March 6, and it plans to inaugurate an ultramodern train station this summer.

The first special exhibition at the Grand Curtius, from March 22 to June 28, will be dedicated to Belgian surrealist painter Paul Delvaux (1897-1994). Apart from female nudes, a favourite motif of his, fittingly enough, was trains and train stations.