12/02/2008 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 12 February, Slovenia's finance minister Andrej Bajuk said that there was a slowdown in growth but it remained close to potential. The economic situation in Europe, while fragile, was different from that in the United States, he said after the ECOFIN Council he had been chairing. Due to strong fundamentals, the picture should not be too gloomy for the European economy in the event of a slowdown in the United States. (A.B.)