Nice, France - The European Union's finance ministers Saturday piled pressure on banks and insurance companies to provide greater transparency in the wake of the global financial turmoil.

At an informal meeting in the French seaside city of Nice, ministers said "measures designed to restore confidence through transparency and the responsibility of the actors will be put in place without delay."

The EU's internal market commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, is due to unveil a set of proposals aimed at improving the transparency of financial market operators in October.

Though details are as yet unclear, the proposals are expected to include a set of requirements for credit rating agencies wishing to operate in the EU.

Brussels - The finance ministers of the 15 countries which share the euro gathered in Nice on Friday to find ways of avoiding a recession and to prevent a repeat of the ongoing turmoil seen on the financial markets.

Ministers were set to discuss the latest economic forecasts of the European Commission, which on Wednesday cut its 2008 growth forecast for the eurozone to just 1.3 per cent.

Within the group, Germany and Spain are expected to experience a technical recession - which is defined as two consecutive quarters of economic contraction - while France and Italy will see their economies stagnate during the second half of the year.

Brussels  - European Union officials in Brussels on Wednesday said Google's decision to halve the amount of time it stores internet users' personal data is "a good step in the right direction."

The search engine giant announced this week that it would be storing unique PC addresses, known as Internet Protocol (IP) numbers, for nine months rather than 18.

The move comes on the back of growing pressure from the EU, which is seeking to protect its citizen's privacy and would like internet search engines to retain users' personal data for a maximum of six months.

Vienna  - Although the Danube is getting cleaner, the lack of sewage systems in Central and Eastern Europe continues to strain Europe's second longest river, a new study says.

In the upper stretch of the Danube in Germany and Austria, wildlife is disappearing because of river regulation, the International Commission for the Protection of the Danube River (ICPDR) said in its survey which it presented in Vienna on Thursday.

The study shows that the river is less polluted by chemicals than it was during an earlier study in 2001.

Brussels - Warning of tough times ahead, the European Commission on Wednesday cut the EU's 2008 growth estimates for a second time in seven months - this time to 1.4 per cent.

The EU's executive arm had previously forecast a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate for the 27-member bloc of 2.0 per cent. The commission's February interim estimate had in turn been revised down by about half a percentage point from its November forecast.

GDP for the 15-member eurozone was similarly revised down, from 1.7 per cent to 1.3 per cent, in line with analysts' expectations.

Paris - European aerospace giant EADS has expanded its Power 8 cost-saving programme to counteract the weakness of the dollar against the euro, the French daily Le Monde reported Tuesday.

Unlike the original plan, which was created in response to losses suffered by the EADS subsidiary Airbus because of problems with its A 380 superjumbo, the new "Power
8 plus" programme involves the entire company and is to save it 1 billion euros (1.41 billion dollars) beginning in 2010.