The euro steadied above this week's eight-month lows against the dollar ahead of U.S. jobs data on Friday after tripping briefly when an Italian government minister said Italy should consider leaving the single currency The market remained jittery about prospects for political and economic stability in Europe following this week's rejection of the European Union constitution by two of the bloc's founder members, France and the Netherlands. Underlining these concerns, the euro fell steeply but briefly after euro-skeptic Italian Welfare Minister Roberto Maroni said Italy should leave the euro zone and reintroduce the lira. "The market reacted very sharply this morning -- the market remains on tenterhooks for any negative news about the euro," said Mitul Kotecha, head of global foreign exchange research at Calyon. "If the payroll numbers are good, we might get a bit more dollar upside today, but moves are likely to be at a slower pace than we have seen this week." Despite this week's fall, which took the euro down to 15 cents below last December's record high versus the dollar, the single currency is still almost 40 cents up from record lows set in 2000.