French, German rifts show already
PARIS Exuberant supporters were still out celebrating Francois Hollande's election as president of France when the first fissures began opening up in the Franco-German motor that drives the rest of Europe.
Although officials on both sides of the Rhine vowed to continue their close political cooperation, German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a blunt rejection Monday of Hollande's pledge to renegotiate a Europe-wide fiscal treaty to rein in public debt.
Nor would she countenance deficit spending to boost the economic growth that Europe so desperately needs, pouring cold water on another of Hollande's campaign promises. Growth could come only through "structural reforms," the conservative Merkel said.
It was an awkward start for the European Union's newest but most important power couple, the leaders of its two biggest economies and political heavyweights, who together hold the key to how the continent deals with its dire debt crisis. The global economy now depends in major part on what results from the collision between rigid German insistence on fiscal rectitude and the wave of anti-austerity anger sweeping through Europe, with left-leaning Socialist Hollande riding its crest.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-hollande-merkel-20120508,0,5715552.story
Skink
(10,122 posts)bemildred
(90,061 posts)BRUSSELS Moves to re-balance European economic policy away from austerity alone and kickstart growth gathered pace Tuesday as the EU called leaders to extraordinary talks after a voter backlash.
European Union president Herman Van Rompuy announced a May 23 "informal dinner of heads of state or government" in Brussels to precede a decisive summit already scheduled for June 28-29.
The meeting will see French Socialist president-elect Francois Hollande take his seat among fellow EU leaders for the first time.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has so far resisted any major shift away from budgetary consolidation as the bedrock solution to twin sovereign and banking debt crises.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hcWDr4jAs46903nhOy79_59y4hlg?docId=CNG.76aef8dd72b01d8ddedd0d93e801cdaf.161
marmar
(77,091 posts)Makes you long for Herr Schroeder