BUSINESS MEMO: COMMON EU CURRENCY

The new French government is determined to stick to the timetable and conditions for introducing a common European Union currency by 1999, relieved EU finance ministers said.

Doubts about the fate of the single currency project have arisen in the past two weeks because of election promises by the new leftist government in France and Germany's inability to plug an $11.8 billion budget shortfall.

But ministers say their new French counterpart, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, told them France remains committed to joining the European Monetary Union by its planned Jan. 1, 1999 start.