Riga  - The Latvian government rushed to justify its decision to join the UK and Sweden in blocking French proposals to reform the EU's Common Agricultural Policy
(CAP) on Friday.

The Baltic state's agriculture ministry dashed out a special release soon after the vote in an effort to explain why it had broken ranks with its neighbours, Estonia and Lithuania, in the important Brussels vote.

France, the largest single recipient of CAP funds, had proposed mild reforms to the policy which critics say would largely keep subsidies to its farmers intact.

CAP is the largest single item of EU expenditure, accounting for nearly 70 billion dollars annually and is due for renewal when current arrangements expire in 2013.

Sofia  - Bulgaria should not take part in financing the European Union's emergency economic recovery package, a top official said Friday in Sofia.

"It is out of place to finance the European economy with Bulgarian money," the head of the parliamentary budget and finance committee, Rumen Ovcharov, told the private Nova television.

Brussels - The European Union's richest members must make concessions to their poorer peers if the bloc is to agree to a landmark deal on fighting climate change, a Polish minister insisted Thursday.

"We are as far from an agreement as we were in October ... It is really difficult to understand why a number of the most affluent member states ... are not really moving an inch," Polish Minister for Europe Mikolaj Dowgielewicz told journalists in Brussels.

Berlin - European economic sentiment slumped to an historic low in November, a key indicator released Thursday showed, amid signs that the slowdown in the global economy is gaining momentum.

The European Commission's closely watched economic sentiment indicator for the 15-member eurozone fell more-than-forecast by 5.1 points to 74.9 in November from
80.4 in October.

The indicator now stands at its lowest level since August 1993.

Its release follows the commission's announcement Wednesday of a 200-billion-euro (259-billion-dollar) stimulus package aimed at helping the European economy to limp through the current economic downturn which has been triggered by the world's financial crisis.

Paris - The diplomatic row between the European Union and China escalated Thursday when Fr

Mumbai/Brussels- A delegation of 13 European Parliament representatives who were caught in the Mumbai terrorist attacks are safe, a member of the delegation told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa on Thursday.

Parliamentarian Daniel Caspary, a member of the parliament's trade committee, told dpa by telephone that he, six fellow members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and six support staff had managed to escape to the French consulate in Mumbai.

France currently holds the EU's rotating presidency.