Soaring prices at Europe's superMarkets and petrol stations require a coordinated response by the world's top eight economies rather than fiscal or monetary policy changes, EU finance ministers said on Tuesday. "We have to accept external shocks and we have to discuss (this) at a multilateral level," said Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Joaquin Almunia ahead of a monthly meeting of the EU's finance ministers. "I hope that the next G-8 summit will consider this issue and decide how to coordinate among the countries," he said. The Group of Eight countries are the United States, Canada, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, Italy and Britain. Dozens of world leaders were due to meet in Rome on Tuesday to discuss the wider food crisis, emergency humanitarian aid needs and perhaps longer-term challenges. Prices of many food commodities have doubled in the last two years and are likely to remain high for the next decade even if they retreat from recent records, according to the OECD and the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation. Inflation is running at a record 3.6% in the euro zone, which also risks a quite sharp economic slowdown. Food costs rose twice as fast as broader prices in the EU in April, the EU statistics office said, with milk, cheese and eggs showing the biggest surges, and the worst-hit countries being the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Transport fuels cost 12 % more in April than a year ago, sparking protests across the European Union by truckers and fishermen demanding tax cuts on fuel for the worst hit sectors.