Hours after François Hollande was elected as president ofFrance, promising relief from austerity to address Europe’s financial crisis, Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany on Monday pointedly insisted that neither she nor her government favored a renegotiation of a fiscal pact underpinning the continent’s belt-tightening.
Mrs. Merkel’s remarks at a news conference in Berlin underscored both the abiding significance of the axis between France and Germany that drives European decision-making and the competing visions, sharpened by Mr. Hollande’s triumph, over how the financial crisis should be addressed.
The balance between reducing debt and addressing popular anger at austerity measures is proving complicated for Europeans, and Mr. Hollande has said that he intends to give “a new direction to Europe,” demanding that a European Union treaty limiting debt be expanded to include measures to stimulate economic growth.
Ms. Merkel telephoned Mr. Hollande on Sunday night to congratulate him on his victory, according to Steffen Seibert, her spokesman. On Monday, she stepped up her efforts to avoid any appearance of a rift after working so closely with the outgoing president, Nicolas Sarkozy that their collaboration became known as “Merkozy.”
“I may say from my side that François Hollande will be welcomed with open arms here in Germany by me,” Ms. Merkel said. “We will work together well and intensively.”
But she insisted that the fiscal pact negotiated with Mr. Sarkozy and endorsed by 25 European Union member states was “not negotiable.”
"We in Germany are of the opinion, and so am I personally, that the fiscal pact is not negotiable. It has been negotiated and has been signed by 25 countries,” she said.
“We are in the middle of a debate to which France, of course, under its new president, will bring its own emphasis,” she said. “But we are talking about two sides of the same coin — progress is only achievable via solid finances plus growth.”
Her reference to growth was apparently designed to suggest that she was not ruling out some kind of compromise.
Her remarks came in the wake of elections in France and Greece that punished leaders advocating austerity, leaving Europeans on Monday to contemplate a new and untested political landscape shaped by competing demands for austerity to counter the debt crisis and growth to avert further deprivation.
Mrs. Merkel’s remarks at a news conference in Berlin underscored both the abiding significance of the axis between France and Germany that drives European decision-making and the competing visions, sharpened by Mr. Hollande’s triumph, over how the financial crisis should be addressed.
Ms. Merkel telephoned Mr. Hollande on Sunday night to congratulate him on his victory, according to Steffen Seibert, her spokesman. On Monday, she stepped up her efforts to avoid any appearance of a rift after working so closely with the outgoing president, Nicolas Sarkozy that their collaboration became known as “Merkozy.”
But she insisted that the fiscal pact negotiated with Mr. Sarkozy and endorsed by 25 European Union member states was “not negotiable.”
“We are in the middle of a debate to which France, of course, under its new president, will bring its own emphasis,” she said. “But we are talking about two sides of the same coin — progress is only achievable via solid finances plus growth.”
Her reference to growth was apparently designed to suggest that she was not ruling out some kind of compromise.
No comments:
Post a Comment