The fight against tax evasion will be on the agenda of the next European Union summit in May, EU president Herman Van Rompuy said Friday. "Every year a trillion euros are lost in tax evasion and tax avoidance" in Europe, Van Rompuy said in a video message. "I have decided to put tax evasion on the agenda of the next May 22" summit. Van Rompuy, who chairs the talks between the bloc's 27 leaders, said the amount lost each year equalled the GDP of Spain, the EU's fifth biggest economy, and was 100 times the size of the 10-billion-euro bailout just agreed for Cyprus.

By Luke Baker BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Tax evasion is causing lost income of around one trillion euros a year in the European Union, the president of the European Council said on Friday, and EU leaders will discuss how to combat the issue at a summit next month. "We must seize the increased political momentum to address this critical problem," Herman Van Rompuy, who chairs meetings of EU leaders, said in a statement broadcast on the Internet.

The European Union plans to tighten up its defences against unfair competition from dumped and subsidised goods, as it begins talks on a series of Free Trade Agreements with major partners, including the United States. The proposed measures will benefit all sides -- "producers, importers and users," EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said in a statement. "We want to equip EU businesses better to tackle unfair trade practices abroad while not negatively affecting EU consumers or companies that rely on imports," De Gucht said.

US Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew urged countries with the "capacity" to help spur growth, after talks with his German counterpart here on Tuesday. Lew told a joint press conference with Wolfgang Schaeuble that the driver of economic growth would be consumer demand, adding "policies that will help drive consumer demand in countries that have capacity" would be "helpful". The Treasury chief is on a whistle-stop tour to meet eurozone leaders, his first trip to Europe since taking over the post from Tim Geithner in February.