EU\\\'s deficit divisions on show at jobs summit

MILAN, Oct 8 (AFP) : European Union leaders headed to Milan Wednesday for an emergency jobs summit that was set to be overshadowed by a deepening split over the rules governing the euro.
Matteo Renzi, Italy's reform-minded young prime minister, called the meeting to kickstart a discussion on balancing budget deficit ceilings which he and others blame for aggravating the current economic downturn with measures to bolster growth.
That debate has become heated in the last week as France has publicly declared its intention to flout the rules by unveiling budget proposals which mean it will continue to breach the agreed deficit ceiling of three per cent of output until 2017, a stance that has irked Germany.
The European Commission is now considering whether to take the unprecedented step of asking France to rewrite its budget under new powers which the EU executive obtained last year.
Theoretically the procedure could lead to France being fined, although EU diplomats say the prospects of such a humiliating rebuke to one of the EU's major powers are slim.
Underlining tensions over the issue, Jens Weidmann, the president of the Bundesbank, Germany's influential central bank, said on Wednesday he would support Brussels if officials decided to reject the French budget.