Brussels - The European Union's executive is to approve Monday French and Austrian schemes to recapitalize troubled banks after it updated its own rules on state aid, a top official said.

The European Commission has adopted a new set of guidelines on how EU member states should be allowed to rescue banks hit by the credit crunch, and following the move, "the commission will adopt the French recapitalization scheme today ... and will shortly approve the Austrian scheme," EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said.

Brussels - European Union foreign ministers were meeting in Brussels on Monday to discuss a request by the United Nations for the bloc to send peacekeeping troops to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

France, which holds the EU's rotating presidency, has ruled out the deployment of European forces. But pressure has grown on ministers to act following an appeal from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, who says Europe should help reinforce UN peacekeepers in the former Belgian colony until more UN troops can deploy.