Germany has rejected Nicolas Sarkozy's idea to change the rules of the European Central Bank if he should be re-elected as French president.
“The German position on the ECB and its role – independent of encouragement and assistance from politics – is known, also in Paris, and has been unchanged for a long time”, German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, said. He added that Berlin agrees with Paris on the need to boost growth and employment in Europe, but suggested this was not a task for the eurozone central bank.
The Danish minister of economy, who is chairing the meetings of EU finance chiefs on Monday, said all this talk was counter-productive. "I think that the European Central Bank could only act when politicians stop talking about what the central bank should do", Margrethe Vestager said. "It is very important that the Central Bank is independent in handling monetary policy, and when Merkel and Sarkozy backed off the Central Bank, then it started to act, and to make sure that the equity was more available than it had been. And I think that the reason why we are in a more stable situation now is very much due to the fact that there is an active monetary policy by the ECB", she said.
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