The mission of Taylor 2, the six-member budget version of the Paul Taylor Dance Company, is to bring Mr. Taylor's works to places that may not be able to afford the main troupe.
In many cases apparent reductions in government spending are tricks of the light that will bring higher costs later.To prevent a repeat of this in the new year, a 29-member budget conference of both houses is meant to propose a plan by December 13th which would then be voted on by Congress.
Under arrangements set to be enacted next year, the E.U. executive will be mandated to review euro-zone members' budget plans long before they go to national parliaments, to recommend changes and issue public warnings.
And Portuguese GDP per head has fallen from just over 80% of the EU 25 average in 1999 to just over 70% last year.Portugal was the first country threatened with sanctions by the European Commission for breaching the euro zone's stability and growth pact, which sets ceilings for euro members' budget deficits.
His absolute priority now, he indicates, is to get the euro under way.People close to the chancellor argue that Germany's determination to keep euro-members' budget deficits at "3% and not a decimal point more" of GDP was a mistake all along.
When the Stability and Growth Pact, which sets the rules for the monetary union, was adopted in 1997, the German government was a main proponent of strict limits on members' budget deficits, arguing that profligate borrowing by governments would undermine Europe's new currency, the euro.
Finding agreement to fund the government before the Jan . 15deadline is largely in the hands of a 29-member budget negotiating committee.
Lawmakers -- either in the lower house's full session or its 41-member budget committee -- will have to be consulted again about the EU leaders' summit conclusions.
The commission's president, Romano Prodi, said members' budgets should be at or close to balanced by 2006 at the latest.
The European Commission, meanwhile, is pressing ahead with plans for close monitoring of members' budgets and economies, with punishments for those that do not follow its therapy.
OPEC, despite relying almost exclusively on oil revenue to prop up its members' budgets, is not entirely against the idea of lower prices.
