Follow Us

Follow us on Twitter  Follow us on LinkedIn
 

30 January 2012

FT: Victory for Merkel over fiscal treaty


25 of the European Union's 27 countries have signed up to a German-inspired treaty enshrining tougher fiscal rules to help underpin the euro.

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, said the German proposal for the EU to control Greece’s budget decision-making “would not be reasonable, not be democratic, nor would it be effective”. He said that he had confronted Angela Merkel, his German counterpart, with his views and insisted she had agreed.

“The recovery process in Greece can only be enacted by the Greeks themselves, democratically”, Mr Sarkozy said. “There can be no question of putting any country under tutelage. Having spoken to the chancellor, I can tell you this is exactly her position.”

However, Ms Merkel said she still believed that Greece required stricter monitoring to stick to its bailout targets, saying Athens’ repeated failure to implement agreed reforms warranted more intensive intervention.

“Greece is a special case in this sense”, Ms Merkel said. “They have to implement the programme completely.” Ms Merkel was handed a symbolic victory in her months’ long drive to include tough budget limits into the fabric of the single currency. But Berlin lost a second signatory at the summit when the Czech Republic announced it would join the UK by not agreeing to the pact.

Full article (FT subscription required)



© Financial Times


< Next Previous >
Key
 Hover over the blue highlighted text to view the acronym meaning
Hover over these icons for more information



Add new comment