breaking run on foreign exchange markets is fuelling calls for a political counterweight to the European Central Bank, increasingly seen as indifferent to the currency's strength. While they rarely see things eye-to-eye, business leaders and unions are both urging European governments to do something about the euro's strength and fill what they consider a political void at the eurozone's heart. “We are unfortunately in a situation of inevitable passivity with no real way of acting to slow the weakness of the dollar or the strength of the euro,” said Ernest-Antoine Seilliere, head of the Business Europe employers association. The euro rose on Friday to a record high just shy of 1.55 dollars on growing concerns that the US economy may have lurched into a recession and in the face of higher interest rates in Europe than in the United States. “While the ECB is a federal type institution, it does not have an organized political power in front of it, like in some other countries,” Seilliere said. “That's why we call on politicians to realize that the only way to avoid swings in the euro to unpredictable levels is to try to arm the eurozone politically, through the Eurogroup.” The only organized political institution in the eurozone is the Eurogroup, the informal monthly meetings of finance ministers from the 15 nations sharing the euro. Eurozone finance ministers and central bankers have so far limited their reaction to urging the US to do more than pay lip service to its long
