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The European Union wont repeat old mistakes that didnt work in the past to counter a worsening of the economic environment, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said.

The 28-member bloc will wait for the European Investment Bank and the European Commission to draw up a list of concrete investment projects by year-end and then decide how they can be financed, the minister told reporters before a meeting of euro-zone finance ministers in Luxembourg. The European Stability Mechanism, the currency blocs financial backstop, wont be tapped, he said.

We wont do this by using the capital stock of the ESM but, where appropriate, by a necessary increase in the capital of the EIB, Schaeuble said. We have plenty of options.

EIB chief Werner Hoyer said Sept. 13 in Milan that appropriate budgetary arrangements have to be made for the EUs development bank to play a bigger role in stimulating the regions economy. Hoyer said previously that the EIB is highly sensitive about maintaining its top credit rating, which is higher than that of most of its shareholders, the 28 EU countries.

Last week the International Monetary Fund cut its euro-area growth forecasts to 0.8 percent for 2014 and 1.3 percent next year. EU finance ministers meeting in Luxembourg tomorrow will call on the EU to identify projects that could be realized in the short and medium term and lay the foundation for a credible and transparent pipeline of projects, according to a draft statement obtained by Bloomberg News.

We need more investment, primarily in the private sector, secondly also in the public sector, but not all of those have to be publicly funded, they can also be privately financed, Schaeuble said. Europe needs an improvement in the institutional environment and sustainable fiscal policy, he said.

Frances budget deficit will amount to 4.4 percent of the economy in 2014 and 4.3 percent in 2015, violating the EUs 3 percent limit both years, even as the government plans spending cuts of 21 billion euros ($27 billion) in 2015, Finance Minister Michel Sapin said Oct. 1 in Paris. While EU treaties apply to all, Europe needs a debate about the proper monetary and budgetary policy mix to lift growth, he said Oct. 5.

Well wait for France to present its budget proposal and the structural reforms the government has announced. The commission will then give its verdict. These are the European rules, and the European rules, everybody says, are there to be respected, Schaeuble said. Im quite confident that a solution will be found in France.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rainer Buergin in Luxembourg at rbuergin1@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Crawford at acrawford6@bloomberg.net Zoe Schneeweiss, Patrick Henry

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Schaeuble Says EU Growth Boost May Require EIB Capital Increase

Europe is lagging behind and urgently needs a big data investment to get on the bandwagon, Neelie Kroes said

Big data is going to get a big boost from the European Union, which will match an industry consortium's 2 billion investment with 500 million of public money over the next five years.

Companies including Atos, IBM, Nokia Solutions and Networks, Orange, SAP, and Siemens, along with several research bodies, will invest in the public-private partnership (PPP) from January 2015.

The partnership will invest in research and innovation in big data fields such as energy, manufacturing and health to deliver services including personalized medicine, food logistics and predictive analytics. Other products could include forecasting crop yields or speeding thediagnosis of brain injuries.

This investment will give a boost to the struggling European big data industry, European Commission vice president Neelie Kroes said during a news conference in Brussels.

"Europe is trailing behind. Virtually every big data company is from the USA, none are from Europe," she said. "That has to change and that is why we are putting public money on the table."

The money is needed to help companies process some of the 1.7 million gigabytes of data she said is generated around the world each minute. This data, including climate information, satellite imagery, digital pictures and videos, transaction records and GPS signals should be put to use by European companies, Kroes said.

The 25 companies forming the Big Data Value Association also see an immediate need to get their act together and start competing, said association president Jan Sundelin, who is also CEO of the Dutch e-commerce company Tie Kinetix.

Europe is one of the largest retail markets in the world, yet non-European companies "know more about our consumers and what we are doing in Europe than we know ourselves," he said during the news conference, where he invited other companies and startups to take part in the research.

The investments in the industry will also support "Innovation Spaces" that will offer secure environments for experimenting with both private and open data, the Commission said.

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Europe to get 2.5 billion big data boost

(BRUSSELS) - The European Union has called a meeting of health ministers on Thursday to discuss the possible screening of travellers from Ebola-hit west African countries, officials said.

The talks are designed "to coordinate the actions of member states" in the absence of any agreement on whether to monitor travellers to Europe, the officials said.

Britain is the only European nation so far to introduce such measures, with screening at Heathrow and Gatwick airports and on Eurostar trains from France and Belgium.

The United States and Canada had also announced new screening measures at major airport hubs to check travellers for symptoms of the deadly disease, and pressure has grown for other nations to follow their lead.

"The idea is for (EU) member states to discuss screening upon arrival in the European Union," European Commission health spokesman Frederic Vincent told reporters.

He said the meeting would focus on coordinating efforts since any introduction of screening at airports and train stations would be a sovereign decision by a member state.

A European source said the discussion will also touch on "the effectiveness of screening procedures on departure from the affected countries".

The goal is to also "reassure Europeans" at a time when the infection of a Spanish nurse last week in Madrid raised concerns throughout Europe, the source added.

Fewer than half a dozen member states, including France and Belgium, have direct air links with high-risk areas of West Africa.

The World Health Organisation has so far not recommended screening travellers from Ebola-hit countries, which carry it out themselves, usually by having officials take the temperatures of travellers.

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EU ministers to hold anti-Ebola talks

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