The French president told the new German chancellor the EU must find ‘pragmatic ways’ to finance economic growth and strategic sovereignty.
Europe must create new financial instruments like the coronavirus
recovery fund to boost its economic and strategic sovereignty, French
President Emmanuel Macron urged on Friday.
Macron issued the plea while speaking to reporters after his first
meeting with freshly sworn-in German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had
come to Paris for his first foreign trip just two days after his
inauguration.
Both leaders vowed to use "flexibilities" under the EU's debt rules
to ensure sustained economic growth and finance the green transition.
But Macron notably went one step further when he touched on the €800
billion coronavirus recovery fund, under which EU countries for the
first time agreed to share limited common debt risk.
"We need the same capacity to innovate and invent appropriate solutions to accompany the coming period," said Macron.
His proposition is "not a question of pre-empting instruments or
returning to the debates we have faced a lot about in recent years," he
added. It's about responding to the "new environment" the EU is facing,
which includes "unprecedented economic and social conditions" following
the pandemic.
He also pointed to the need for investments into European sovereignty "that the geopolitical tensions impose on us."
"We need to find pragmatic ways and good agreements," Macron stressed.
Such calls for new financial tools, which would most likely involve a
broader pooling of debt risk among EU countries, are a red rag in
Germany as well as "frugals" like the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and
Sweden.
Scholz, for his part, was more restrained and avoided speaking of new
financial tools, but he stressed that both sides could find a common
approach.
"I am confident that we will be able to solve the tasks that lie
ahead of us jointly," he said. "After all, it's about ensuring that we
continue to enable and sustain the growth that we have set in motion
with the recovery fund, and that we ensure sound finances at the same
time."...
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