Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said a meeting today of euro area finance chiefs “will be tough and the situation is serious.”

“We really need to step up efforts, make extra reforms, extra cuts and strict agreements on budgets,” he told reporters before the meeting.

To contact the reporter on this story: Fred Pals in Brussels at fpals@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Patrick Henry at phenry8@bloomberg.net