Brussels - European Union finance ministers agreed Tuesday to raise the minimum level of bank deposit guarantees for their citizens, from 20,000 euros (25,000 dollars) to 100,000 euros by the end of 2011.

In the meantime, the safety net is to be raised to 50,000 euros at the end of June 2009.

Individual member states will be free to raise these minimum levels, while the pay-out period in the event of a bank going bankrupt will be reduced, from three months to three days.

Brussels - The European Union's finance ministers were meeting in Brussels on Tuesday to discuss a 200-billion-euro (252-billion-dollar) recovery plan aimed at lifting their economies out of recession.

Divisions remain as to how much is needed and who should foot the bill, with Europe's largest economy - Germany - saying it is already doing its fair share.

While Britain and France both support large fiscal stimulus packages, Poland and the Netherlands have sided with the German camp in arguing that governments should not go on a spending spree.

Brussels/Paris - A spokesman for the European Commission on Monday denied that Brussels was blocking the French bank bailout, after French media reported that the 10.5-billion-euro (13.24- billion-dollar) plan was in trouble.

"There is no blocking. The commission is working with the French authorities," European Commission spokesman Johannes Laitenberger told reporters in Brussels, adding that a decision on the plan could come as early as this week.

Brussels - The European Union's executive on Tuesday gave the green light to a Latvian state bail-out of the country's largest locally-based bank, Parex Banka, saying that it was "necessary to avoid a serious disturbance in the Latvian economy."

The 200-million-lats (350-million-dollar) bail-out is "limited in time and scope to the minimum necessary to restore the financing, require an adequate fee level and provide safeguards to minimize distortions of competition," a press release from the European Commission said.

Mons, Belgium - NATO should boost the number of its troops in Afghanistan by up to 20,000 men, a 40-per-cent increase from current numbers, if it wants to stabilize the country, NATO's top military commander said Monday.

The United States is set to deploy an extra brigade (up to 5,000 men) to Afghanistan in 2009, and "we are looking at how to resource a request from (NATO command in Afghanistan) for three more brigades," NATO military commander General Bantz J Craddock told journalists at the alliance's headquarters in Belgium.

Brussels - The European Union should lead international efforts to protect the Arctic region from global warming and from the resulting increase in the exploitation by humans of its natural resources, officials in Brussels said Thursday.

In a document submitted to the European Parliament and to member states, the European Commission warned that the Arctic region was becoming "increasingly at risk from the combined effects of climate change and increased human activity."