Germany’s Schulz seeks ‘United States of Europe’

Social Democrat leader demands EU reform as price for opening coalition talks with Angela Merkel

By Justin Huggler in Berlin and

James Crisp in Brussels

THE man who could be Germany’s vice-chancellor within weeks yesterday called for the European Union to transform itself into a “United States of Europe”.

Martin Schulz, the leader of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), called for a new federal constitution for the EU by 2025.

Hours before his party voted to open talks on forming a new coalition with the beleaguered Angela Merkel, Mr Schulz made clear he would demand radical EU reform and far deeper integration than previously envisaged as his price for ending weeks of political crisis in Germany.

“I want a new constitutional treaty to establish the United States of Europe. A Europe that is no threat to its member states, but a beneficial addition,” he said in a speech at his party conference.

Under Mr Schulz’s proposals, Brussels would be given power over individual member states’ foreign and domestic policy, as well as taxes.

Countries who refuse to sign up to a new federal Europe should automatically lose their EU membership, he said.

A deal with Mr Schulz’s party is Mrs Merkel’s last chance to prevent new elections after coalition negotiations with smaller parties broke down last month.

Urging delegates to vote in favour of talks with Mrs Merkel’s Christian Democrats (CDU), Mr Schulz said he would make a “complete turnaround in Germany’s European policy” a central condition of any deal.

But Mrs Merkel lost no time in rejecting Mr Schulz’s proposals for a federal Europe, ruling them out before delegates had even finished voting.

“I believe the ability to act now is the priority, not setting long-term goals,” she said. Greater cooperation between EU members was more important than drawing up new constitutions and taking

‘I want a new constitutional treaty to establish the United States of Europe. A Europe that is no threat to members’

powers from members, she argued.

“We have to be economically strong, we need to work better together in the field of defence. We must pursue a common foreign policy, a common development policy, to be taken seriously as a continent or as a European Union.”

The threat of new German elections receded yesterday after the SPD voted in favour of “open-ended talks”.

Negotiations are not expected to begin until January, and the options of a new coalition and the SPD supporting a Merkel-led minority government both remain on the table.

Mr Schulz’s speech marked a dramatic attempt to seize back the initiative after he was forced to back down over his earlier refusal to open talks with Mrs Merkel by a rebellion in his parliamentary party.

A former president of the European parliament and committed federalist, he appears to have seized on Europe as a central cause for the SPD after it suffered its worst ever election result.

His proposals are a bid to put himself and Germany alongside France’s Emmanuel Macron as standard-bearers for a Europe of ever closer union.

It is a move that will pit France and Germany against central European countries. While the EU maintains a united front over Brexit, there are deep divisions between east and west over the handling of the migration crisis and the state of the rule of law and democracy in Hungary and Poland.

Mr Schulz acknowledged as much in his speech, accusing Poland of “systematically undermining European values”, and saying Hungary was “increasingly isolating itself ”.

Once drafted, a new federal constitution would be “presented to member states, and those who are against it will simply leave the EU,” he said.

The EU’S uneasy relationship with Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic sunk to a new low yesterday as Brussels said it would take them to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) for refusing to accept the bloc’s imposed quotas of migrants.

EU countries agreed to redistribute 120,000 asylum seekers from Italy and Greece in 2015. The three countries, outvoted over the compulsory law, now face huge, daily fines unless they take their share.