France and Germany’s finance ministers agreed to draw up a roadmap for euro zone reform before June on Friday, meeting for the first time since Chancellor Angela Merkel formed a new coalition government. As Reuters writes in the article France, Germany aim for euro zone reform roadmap by June, Berlin and Paris both talk up the need for European renewal but Merkel is at odds with French President Emmanuel Macron over the pace and scope of reforms to the euro zone project that they both cherish.
“We must agree by June a Franco-German roadmap for the whole euro zone. It’ll be very tough work,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, adding that talks would focus on the bloc’s joint rules and institutions making up its banking union and convergence in the way corporate tax is calculated.
France and Germany had originally hoped to offer a joint vision for deeper integration within the single currency bloc by this month, but Merkel’s difficulties forming a coalition delayed achieving this.
Now that the German government is in place, the French leader is itching to press ahead with reforms, aware that the window of opportunity is narrow ahead of European elections next year and Britain’s looming departure from the European Union.
Macron has championed a euro zone finance minister and an independent budget for the single currency bloc, but members of Merkel’s conservative bloc are wary of deeper integration and shudder at the thought of pooling risks and debt with less financially stable member states.
“We have put a certain number of very concrete divergences with serious consequences on the table. I can guarantee you that we are going to resolve them,” Le Maire said at a joint news conference with his new German counterpart Olaf Scholz. The German minister said that progress needed to be made on completing banking union in the euro zone and consensus needed to be found on further integration steps.Scholz, a 59-year-old Social Democrat, is likely to stick to Germany’s fiscal conservatism but may adopt a more conciliatory tone toward poorer euro zone countries such as Greece than his predecessor Wolfgang Schaeuble. When Scholz was asked if he wanted to be a force for further euro zone integration in Merkel’s cabinet, he replied simply: “yes”.
