Brussels - European Union Aid Commissioner Louis Michel said Tuesday he planned to travel on a humanitarian mission to Gaza and Israel later this week.

In a statement, Michel said the purpose of his two-day visit would be to "see for myself the suffering of the civilian populations in both Gaza and southern Israel."

Brussels - European Union finance ministers were meeting in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss how to mitigate one of the bloc's sharpest economic downturns in decades.

"This is one of the worst crises," said German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck.

"We can't avoid a recession, but we can try and limit it," he said shortly after his arrival in Brussels.

Brussels - NATO chief Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Monday predicted another difficult year for the alliance's peace-keeping operations in Afghanistan and called on the local government to step up its fight against corruption and drugs.

NATO's secretary general said "2009 will certainly not be easy in Afghanistan.

"There will certainly be more violence, including because we put more forces on the ground," de Hoop Scheffer said at an annual reception with the press in Brussels.

Brussels - Europe faces a deep and broad recession this year, the European Commission predicted Monday, with economic activity in the 16-strong eurozone set to shrink by 1.9 per cent as a result of the world's worst economic crisis since World War II.

"The economic horizon has now significantly darkened as the European Union economy is hit by the financial crisis that deepened during the autumn and is taking a toll on business and consumer confidence," the European Union's executive arm said in presenting its latest economic forecasts.

Brussels - Four more European Union countries Thursday opened up their labour markets to workers from Bulgaria and Romania, but rich nations such as Britain, France, Germany and Italy continue to maintain restrictions.

Greece, Spain, Hungary and Portugal all agreed to welcome Bulgarian and Romanian workers, European Commission officials said, while Denmark said it planned to lift restrictions on all EU workers as of May 1.

But workers from Bulgaria and Romania are still expected to face obstacles in 10 other EU countries for some time to come.

Brussels - The European Union must put all hopes of building a closer relationship with Israel on hold until the fighting in the Gaza Strip ends, a group of leading aid agencies said Wednesday.

It would be "inconceivable" for the EU to work for closer ties with Israel at a time when the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip has been "pushed to crisis point" by Israel's assault on the salient, the statement by groups including Oxfam and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) said.