BRUSSELS Belgium AP With just a month to go before the launch of the euro European Union finance ministers reached an 11th-hour agreement Tuesday on who should speak for the single-currency bloc on the world stage. The agreement resolved months of deadlock between big and small euro-zone nations over representation of the 11-nation currency bloc at the G-7 group of world economic powers and other international bodies. Under the compromise the euro-zone's three existing G-7 nations - Germany France and Italy - keep their seats and will take turns to represent the bloc. Smaller nations will get to sit alongside them at G-7 meetings when they hold the rotating euro-zone presidency. German Finance Minister Oskar Lafontaine will therefore speak for the euro-zone for the first six months of 1999 to be joined by his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niniisto for second half of the year. Wim Duisenberg president of the new European Central Bank will get a G-7 seat. But the EU's executive Commission will offered only a ``technical support'' role. The launch of the euro as the shared currency of 11 EU nations on Jan. 1 will create a single bloc that will rival the United States and Japan as a global economic power. But while U.S. Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Japanese Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa can always get on the phone to discuss the world economic situation nobody was sure whom to call when they want to speak to the euro-bloc. The rotating system of euro-zone presidencies should go some way to meeting that need. The deal is set to be confirmed by EU leaders at their year-end summit next week in Vienna. Details of how the euro-zone will be represented at the International Monetary Fund and other world bodies are also expected to be finalized in the Austrian capital. There was no immediate reaction from other G-7 nations - the United States Japan and Canada who must agree to the proposal. Lafontaine is scheduled to present the proposal at a meeting Friday with Rubin and U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan Friday in Washington. ``It was very important that we defined the rules before the end of the year'' said French Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn. ``I think the Americans will go along with it.'' If accepted the new system will be applied at a G-7 finance ministers and central bankers meeting Feb. 20 in Bonn Germany. Britain the EU's fourth G-7 member is staying out of the euro. The EU ministers also called for an acceleration of efforts to close corporate tax loopholes that cost national treasuries billions of dollars in lost revenue. But differences remained over talk of a wider harmonization of tax policies. Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown repeated British opposition to French and German suggestions of EU-wide tax levels. ``There is no reason why the single currency should mean the same tax rates across Europe'' he told reporters. UR; pa APW19981201.0982.txt.body.html APW19981201.1095.txt.body.html