World wants vision of united Europe: Merkel
BERLIN - Agence France-Presse
German Chancellor Angela Merkel speaks with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso at the start of their meeting at the Chancellery in Berlin. REUTERS Photo
German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on June 4 that the world wanted to know how Europe envisaged in the medium term a political union working alongside its common currency union.Merkel said in a statement delivered ahead of talks with European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso, as the EU official stood beside her, that she would raise the issue during their meeting. “The world wants to know how we imagine the political union to go along with the currency union,” she said. Defining the vision for the medium- and long-term is just as important as short-term measures for fighting the eurozone crisis, she said. The talks between Barroso and Merkel aimed to pave the way for a European Union summit in Brussels on June 28 and 29, with the eurozone debt crisis and the bloc’s future top of the agenda.
Barroso, for his part, also insisted on the need to propose immediate and longer term responses to the crisis. “It is very important to give ... now some signals ... that we believe and will do whatever is necessary to ensure the stability of our currency. That is why we need to speak about the future of our union,” Barroso said in his statement.
Merkel said one of the medium-term points to clarify would be “to what extent we have to place systemically-relevant banks under specific European supervision.” Germany has poured cold water on the idea of a eurozone-wide banking union but the idea is being pushed by the European Commission and European Central Bank.
