Brussels - The fight against climate change and European efforts to stave off a massive recession were set to top the agenda on Thursday as European Union leaders gathered in Brussels for what has been billed as the most crucial summit in years.

"This will be perhaps the most crucial European (summit) in recent years ... a real test for Europe," European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said ahead of the meeting.

Brussels - The European Union on Wednesday approved an Austrian plan to support the country's banking sector valued at 90 billion euros (116 billion dollars).

The plan, originally approved by the Austrian parliament on October 20, consists of a state guarantee for interbank loans capped at 75 billion euros, and a further guarantee for liabilities and assets capped at 15 billion euros.

The Austrian government informed the European Commission, the EU's executive, of its plans at the end of October.

The commission is tasked with overseeing the EU's strict competition rules, and therefore has the final say in matters of state aid.

Brussels - The European Union is increasing its aid to Pakistan to 50 million euros (63 million dollars) over the next three years, the bloc's external affairs commissioner, Benita Ferrero- Waldner, said Monday.

The money is to be directed at boosting EU programmes in the field of education, trade and farming in Pakistan's north-west, a tribal area bordering Afghanistan.

"The border area is very important," Ferrero-Waldner said, noting that educational programmes were particularly important in a destitute part of the country that is also a breeding-ground for terrorists.

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.