Brussels, 07/09/2005 (Agence Europe) - A priority of the United Kingdom as it holds presidency of the G8, the question of development aid financing will also be the focus of debates at the informal Ecofin Council to be held on 9 and 10 September in Manchester. It will be up to Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg's Prime Minister, to begin work in this town in northern England, as the Eurogroup meets late Friday morning. In addition to the usual evaluation of the economic situation in the euro zone, there will be discussions on the political reactions to the rise in oil prices (for the Commission's five-point action plan see EUROPE 9021), the preparations for the next meeting of the G7 at the level of finance ministers, as well as follow-up to the excessive deficit procedure against Portugal. In July, the Commission had given Lisbon three years in which to correct its excessive deficit (EUROPE 8995). On Friday afternoon, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, will chair the first 25-way discussions, to be devoted to the challenges of globalisation and to the main subject, additional development aid financing. The British Presidency, which is the promoter of the International Financing Facility, also supports the idea of a voluntary contribution to air tickets, a project that the French president, Jacques Chirac, plans to defend at the UN summit from 14 to 16 September this year. On this matter, however, as on that of debt relief for the poor countries, the finance ministers are not all in agreement. The EU's economic situation will be discussed on Saturday morning and will be followed by discussion on the financing of terrorism. The question of economic regeneration of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank through European Investment Bank (EIB) mechanisms will be tackled after this. Although evaluation of public finance in Portugal is on the agenda, examination of the Hungarian case has been postponed till the Ecofin Council in October (EUROPE 8990).