French president wants German backing for attempts to reform EU after Brexit
PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday night that his ambitious EU plans to reform the EU needed German backing, as Chancellor Angela Merkel gears up for a crucial vote on forming a new coalition.
“Our ambition cannot come to fruition alone,” Macron told a press conference with Merkel before talks in Paris. “It needs to come together with Germany’s ambition.”
On Sunday, some 600 delegates from Germany’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) will be asked to give the green light to a preliminary coalition agreement reached with Merkel’s conservatives last week.
Her political future is on the line, after more than 12 years in power.
At the meeting with Macron, which appeared aimed at giving her a boost, Merkel said that a “stable German government” was crucial for the EU to move forward with its reform agenda.
In November, she was left considerably weakened after her first attempt to form a new government collapsed when the pro-business Free Democratic Party (FDP) walked out.
She then turned to the SPD, her outgoing governing partners with whom she hopes to form another grand coalition.
Macron, who is driving attempts to reform the EU in the wake of Britain’s decision to leave the bloc, refused to be drawn into trying to predict the outcome of Sunday’s vote, saying it could be “counterproductive.”
But he stressed the pro-European credentials of the SPD, and said the coalition blueprint showed “true European ambition.”
Merkel said her CDU/CSU alliance and the SPD had a shared commitment to Europe.
Macron had made no secret of the fact that he would like to see the SPD, which is enthusiastic about his proposals for closer euro zone integration, including a common budget, remain on the front benches.
Last week, he said a conservativesocial democrat tie-up would be “good for Germany, good for France and above all good for Europe.”
Macron, elected in May on an avowedly pro-Europe platform, has set out grand plans, including suggesting at one point that the zone should have its own budget worth hundreds of billions of euros, an idea that does not sit well with Germany.
Talk of some sort of budget for the 19-country bloc remains, but its size — if it is ever agreed — is likely to be much smaller, and it remains unclear how it would be established.