GOTHENBURG: European Union (EU) finance chiefs said the pace of recovery means they  won’t withdraw stimulus measures before 2011 as they grapple with rising unemployment and effects of the euro’s gains.

“We look with concern to the exchange-rate developments and the impact of our ability to export,” Portuguese Finance Minister Fernando Teixeira dos Santos said today in an interview with Bloomberg TV at a meeting of European finance chiefs in Gothenburg, Sweden. “But we expect markets to react appropriately to the fundamentals of our economy.”

The finance officials are discussing the form and timing of exit strategies after spending billions of euros in emergency measures to drag the economy out of its worst recession in 60 years. While there are signs the recovery is underway, it may not be sustained enough to permit a withdrawal of these measures before 2011, ministers said.

“We have to prepare exit strategies, of course, and we shall see if these strategies can be implemented then in 2011,” Luxembourg’s Jean-Claude Juncker said after leading a meeting of euro-area finance chiefs today. 

The euro, which has gained 13 per cent in the past seven months against the dollar, traded at $1.4544 at 2:10 p.m. in London today, down from $1.4640 in New York yesterday.

The ministers discussed the euro’s advance in preparation for a Group of Seven meeting in Istanbul this weekend, European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet told a press conference, “We had a discussion and in our view the latest in 2011.”