Brussels, 02/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - The President of the European Council, Jean-Claude Juncker, met the Dutch finance minister, Gerrit Zalm, in Luxembourg on Tuesday. The meeting focused on a review of the Stability and Growth Pact, to which ministers are expected to provide a finishing touch at the Eurogroup and Ecofin Council meeting on 7-8 March. Zalm supports a minimum of reform to the pact. At the end of the meeting Mr Juncker (according to a press statement) provided assurances that Mr Zalm's views will “usefully help an agreement to be found, which the presidency is currently searching for in this area”. The Luxembourg prime minister/minister for finance said that Mr Zalm and he agreed that the pact should not lose, “any of its bite when it involved fighting efficiently against the deficit and debt that is incompatible with the medium term stability objective”. The two men, according to the press release, share the same point of view on a “more intelligent” application of the pact, with more limits in times of surplus and more flexibility during economic slowdown. This flexibility, pointed out Mr Juncker, cannot be “applied in a discretionary way by a Member State but has to be founded on a list of spending that satisfies criteria defined in terms of growth, competitiveness and sustainability of public finance”.