EU
Not all #Macron EU reforms possible, German finance minister says
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz (pictured) has said that EU reforms proposed by French President Emmanuel Macron should be addressed before European elections next year, but added that some of the proposals were not feasible, writes Andrea Shalal.
Scholz told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung newspaper Germany would work closely with France over the coming months to assess which reforms should be advanced.
France has been pressing Germany and other European countries to stop holding up tough decisions about the eurozone’s banking and capital market regulations.
Commissioner Guenther Oettinger also criticized Berlin on Saturday for dragging its feet on Macron’s proposals and said initial decisions should be made at the EU summit in June.
“Macron deserves quicker answers from Germany,” he told the same newspaper in a separate interview.
“We will examine what is possible without overloading the ability of individual members to act,” he said in the interview, to be published on Sunday.
Scholz’s comments come days before Macron is due to visit Berlin to meet Chancellor Angela Merkel. Scholz said it was clear that Germany would have to increase its funding of the European Union after Britain leaves the bloc.
But he said Germany would not cover the resulting financial gap on its own, echoing comments by his predecessor, conservative hardliner Wolfgang Schaeuble.
“A German finance minister stays a German finance minister. And I will put on my most miserly face,” he said.
Regarding reforms proposed by Macron, he said Germany wanted to expand the European Stability Mechanism into a monetary union while also ensuring continued parliamentary control.
He said there were “hard nuts to crack” with regard to a proposed banking union, including the high level of non-performing loans in some countries.
Merkel is due to discuss the EU reforms with senior members of her conservative bloc in parliament on Monday after Ralph Brinkhaus, deputy leader of the conservative parliamentary group, raised serious concerns about the eurozone reform drive.
Oettinger, who is also a conservative, said those comments threatened to derail the reform efforts and were “not acceptable.”
Share this article:
-
France4 days ago
France passes new anti-cult law against Senate’s opposition
-
Conferences4 days ago
National Conservatives vow to go ahead with Brussels event
-
NATO5 days ago
‘No violence or intimidation’ can block Ukraine’s NATO path
-
Conferences1 day ago
NatCon’s on-off conference halted by Brussels police