11.   EU finance ministers meeting a week ago in Brussels for their regular working session failed to reach a compromise on the stability pact.

12.   France unexpectedly tied the idea of promoting jobs to approval of the stability pact a week ago.

13.   German Finance Minister Theo Waigel said he was satisfied with the stability pact and that the accord was an important step towards monetary union.

14.   Germany is concerned that unclear wording in the stability pact will give governments room to borrow excessively, boosting inflation and weakening the common currency once it is launched.

15.   Germany will now look how to make a stability pact legally binding, Stark said.

16.   France had threatened to delay its signing of the stability pact unless common currency countries agreed to make a verbal commitment on jobs.

17.   French debt markets fell in response to a possible delay in signing the stability pact.

18.   German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has proposed a longterm stability pact for the Balkans to encourage international investment.

19.   Germany insists on a euro that is as strong as the deutsche mark, and the stability pact is meant to ensure this.

20.   Germany wants the stability pact to spell out precisely the circumstances under which offending countries could escape sanctions.