MESEBERG, Germany—France and Germany are aiming to agree Tuesday on a roadmap for broad overhauls of the European Union as they strain to contain divisions in the bloc and Chancellor Angela Merkel battles to preserve her government in Berlin.
Meeting at a German government guest house 40 miles north of Berlin, Ms. Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron sat down for several hours of negotiations to try to close divides on subjects from migration to economic policy.
The two leaders have set Tuesday’s meeting as a deadline to seal an agreement on demands Mr. Macron set out nearly nine months ago for EU changes and a pooling of resources among the 19 countries in the eurozone.
Prolonged political instability since Germany’s September elections has delayed and complicated the negotiations between Berlin and Paris, leaving the two sides with only a few days to rally other European nations behind their plans before a summit of EU leaders next week.
The crunch talks come as EU unity faces challenges on multiple fronts. President Donald Trump’s open hostility to the EU and punitive trade measures have raised the urgency of a French-German agreement, as the two countries seek to find common ground on reforms before they can present a united front.
On the continent, recent elections have emboldened anti-European parties opposed to Mr. Macron’s call for greater European integration. Tensions flared between European capitals last week when Italy’s new anti-establishment government refused to take in a boat of migrants stranded in the Mediterranean, a move the French government spokesman said showed “cynicism and irresponsibility.”
Ms. Merkel faces her own immigration standoff at home, where interior minister Horst Seehofer is threatening to unilaterally turn back some migrants at German borders, a plan the chancellor opposes. On Monday, the minister said he would start with his plan if Ms. Merkel doesn’t find a European solution within two weeks.
Ahead of the summit in Meseberg, officials said Ms. Merkel and Mr. Macron would try to develop a Europe-wide response to the migration challenge. That could involve putting more money into Europe’s border police, working with countries to dissuade migrants from trying to cross the Mediterranean, and finding a way to share the burden of dealing with asylum requests.
“Those that believe in a European solution need to propose an agenda that is more complete, more ambitious on every aspect,” a French official said ahead of the summit
Ms. Merkel and Mr. Macron are also seeking to close long-standing divisions over the French leader’s proposed eurozone overhauls. Mr. Macron says the eurozone cannot survive without greater sharing of resources and burdens, while Mr. Merkel’s government has long been skeptical of committing taxpayer money to automatically bailing out its neighbors.
French officials said the two leaders are expected to sign off on a compromise Tuesday that would create a meatier backstop for the banking system and an embryonic budget for the currency bloc.
To secure agreement from Germany, French officials say, they have avoided talking about the size of the budget during talks leading up to the summit and long since dropped demands Mr. Macron made for a eurozone finance minister to administer the budget. Ms. Merkel has said the budget should be limited to low-two-digit-billion-euro range and focus on investment rather than stabilizing countries in crisis.
“To have an economic impact, In the long term, it needs to be more than one percentage point of GDP,” the French official said. “But it is a prospect and we need to start by creating the right tool, giving it resources and then it will grow.”
Even if France and Germany can agree on the budget, they may struggle to convince the 17 other countries in the eurozone.
“Nobody has been able to tell me which problem can be solved with this,” Dutch Finance Minister Wopke Hoekstra said in an interview Tuesday with German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
Bagikan Berita Ini
Related Posts :
Alek Sigley: Why Sweden helped free Australian student in N Korea - BBC News- Britain seizes tanker suspected of carrying oil to Syria, which could exacerbate Iran tensions - NBC News
- Gibraltar Seizes Syria-Bound Tanker Thought to Be Carrying Iranian Oil - The New York Times
- Gibraltar Seizes Syria-Bound Tanker Thought to Be Carrying Iranian Oil - The New York Times
- Alek Sigley: Why Sweden helped free Australian student in N Korea - BBC News