EUROPEAN Commissioner Pierre Moscovici claimed eurozone members should be given back control over the common monetary system on a European level to avoid countries taking back control nationally. Daily Express reports in its article End of euro? EU Chief's desperate plead to save eurozone – 'Give people back control' that the EU Economic Chief claimed eurozone member states should retain control of decisions involving the common monetary system via the European Parliament.
Mr Moscovici argued EU leaders should push for a reform of the core European institution ahead of the European Parliament election in May 2019. He said: “There is an elephant which is no longer in the room, but for me it needs to be reintroduced in the room, which is democracy. I don’t see the future of the euro with anti-democratic governments. The way we manage the euro is not satisfying. A few years ago I talked about a democratic scandal. I didn’t mean that the decisions we were taking were scandalous, generally they were well calibrated. But the fact that you can have 23 people in the room deciding on the fate of millions of others without any kind of democratic control, this is not viable. In the long run, it is not possible. Our societies want more and more transparency, more and more accountability. The euro is something very special because it is absolutely informal without any control. We need control. People want to take back control and if we don’t want them to take back control nationally, we need to give them the chance to take back control at the European level.”
It comes as new orders fell for a second month in the euro area as manufacturing activity in the currency bloc expanded at its weakest rate in more than two years in November with orders contracting for a second month.
The biggest influencer on the eurozone data is thought to be the trade war between the US and China, according to IHS Markit Purchasing Managers' Indexes, which has put pressure on global trade and sparked concerns of an economic slowdown in recent months.
James Smith at ING said: ”We expect economic momentum to cool over the winter as wider investment stalls, and consumers become even more cautious. "For manufacturing specifically, the external environment poses further challenges as eurozone momentum slows and trade tensions remain elevated."
Manufacturing activity also slipped in November in countries as varied as France, Germany, Indonesia and South Korea.
