In interviews, speeches and articles, Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany’s finance minister, has given urgency and political impetus to Berlin’s long-standing ideas for a refashioned and more centralised eurozone. Speaking at the College of Europe in Bruges, Mr Schäuble outlined a vision for a changing EU treaties to establish a “budget commissioner” empowered to use common funds and reject national fiscal plans if they “don’t correspond to the rules”.
Asked when he envisaged agreeing the treaties, he said “today is better than tomorrow” and called for negotiations to start straight after the European parliament elections in May. These reforms to integrate the eurozone, he added, must be paired with measures to ensure those countries outside are not “systematically disadvantaged” – an approach that will be welcomed by Britain.
Mr Schäuble’s intervention to restart the reform debate highlights Berlin’s determination that the EU should build on the eurozone’s fragile economic recovery from the financial crisis by creating institutions strong enough to withstand future turmoil.
The veteran finance minister’s pledge to fight for reform comes after the joint declaration in January from German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president François Hollande, pledging to work for closer economic and monetary union. But the German government has now gone a step further, arguing in the FT (see link below) that treaty change must also address one of key negotiating demands of Mr Cameron, the UK prime minister, before his planned 2017 referendum: the protection of the interests of euro “outs”.
Mr Schäuble, a long-term advocate of reform, wants to establish an institutional architecture for a common fiscal and economic policy, with a parliament, finance minister and budget to support countries in crisis and encourage reform. He said it was “nonsense” to suggest the power for a eurozone commissioner to reject national budgets would impinge on sovereignty. “To stick to the rules is not a violation of budget sovereignty . . . of national sovereignty. We have moved sovereignty to the European level", he said.
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See also: George Osborne & Wolfgang Schäuble: Protect Britain's interests in a two-speed Europe
Full interview with Handelsblatt, 27.03.2014
Full speech at Bruges European Business Conference, 27.03.2014 © Federal Ministry of Finance
© Financial Times
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