Merkel urges speed, German parties caution on Macron’s EU reforms

The reforms should not just cover business and currency matters but also migration, budgets as well as cooperation in foreign and defence policy, and science, she said at a press conference.

“By June we will find shared solutions with France,” she said. “I have little doubt that we will be able to put together a strong package,” she added, referring to an EU summit in June set as a target for a reform “roadmap.”

The reform plans put forward by French President Emmanuel Macron have been met however with caution and in some cases opposition from lawmakers in the Germany’s governing coalition parties.

The conservative bloc in parliament – including Merkel’s CDU – has warned that a recently circulated discussion paper is not intended to fix the course for reforms to the EU’s financial framework.

There is an “information debate” within the faction, said Michael Grosse-Broemer, a senior member of the CDU/CSU bloc. Decisions will come later once concrete proposals have been put forward, he said.

Over the weekend, German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz commented to reporters that “not all of [Macron’s] suggestions need to be implemented.”

The CSU, the CDU’s Bavaria-based allies, has taken a harder line.

The party does not accept the idea of a European finance minister and a Europe-wide unemployment benefit among other proposals, said the CSU’s Alexander Dobrindt on Tuesday.

He said Macron was also pursuing French national interests in pushing the reforms, which include a eurozone budget and greater tax harmonization across the bloc.

“Our task, is to define what is in our national interest. And that is what we will do,” he said, adding that not everything Macron suggests is in Germany’s interests.

As Europe’s biggest economy, German consent would be valuable if not essential to Macron in passing reforms.

In a speech to the European Parliament on Tuesday, Macron lauded European integration as the only way to regain sovereignty in the face of global challenges such as migration, climate change, the growing digital economy, and the growth of authoritarian powers.

Germany’s main industry umbrella group earlier called for the government to fully engage with proposed reforms to the European Union.

“The government must shape the direction of European reform constructively and with its own proposals,” said the director general of the Federation of German Industries (BDI), Joachim Lang.

The currency union is the key issue for German industry, Lang told dpa. “A stable and low-risk banking system is essential for investment and growth,” he said.

Source: dpa