国际英语新闻：Barroso says EU faced with five major challenges

BRUSSELS, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- The European Union faces five major challenges over the next year, European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Tuesday during his first State of the Union speech.

The first is that the EU has to deal with the economic crisis and improve economic governance, Barroso told a plenary session of the European Parliament.

Although the 27-nation bloc is still struggling with a sovereign debt crisis, which has aroused concerns about a double-dip EU-wide recession, Barroso cast an optimistic tone about the group's economic future.

President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso delivers a speech during a plenary session of the European Parliament in northeastern French city of Strasbourg, on Sept. 7, 2010, in this photo handed out by the European Commission. Economic recovery in the European Union is gathering pace but uncertainties remain, Jose Manuel Barroso said on Tuesday.

"The economic outlook in the European Union today is better than one year ago, not in the least as a result of our determined action. The recovery is gathering pace, albeit unevenly within the Union," he said.

The latest official forecast put the growth rate this year at 1 percent in the EU and 0.9 percent in the 16-nation euro zone, lower than that of the United States. Yet Barroso said that the eventual figure would be higher than initially estimated.

In order to secure sustainable growth, Barroso said, the EU should accelerate its reform agenda.

His call came on the same day that EU finance ministers agreed to introduce a six-month period to monitor budgetary and structural polices of member states in a bid to strengthen the bloc's economic governance.