By Chris Jones - 20th December 2006
National governments should agree to give more power to the Eurogroup president to coordinate EU economic policy, Pervenche Berès has suggested.
The French MEP who chairs the European parliament’s monetary affairs committee told Le Monde that Eurogroup chief Jean-Claude Juncker should be given a clear mandate to negotiate with MEPs and the European central bank.
“We should give Juncker a clear mandate… so that he can play a role similar to that played by Jacques Delors at the time of the creation of the single market.”
“The commission president of the time was the main intermediary between the member states, in particular France and Germany.”
She stressed that it was important for the 12 countries in the Eurogroup – soon to be 13 with the addition of Slovenia from January 1 – to speak with one voice.
“Although the Eurogroup gives the impression of unanimity, I have not yet seen a high level of cooperation.”
“But now more than ever there is a clear need for cooperation, especially as differences of opinion grow between the group members,” she added.
“Each member state has its own troubles, but none of them consults the others when dealing with these problems.”
“Germany decides to increase VAT rates without asking anyone else, even though that could have a major impact on the economic growth of its neighbours.”
France is also at odds with most of its neighbours, complaining that the strength of the euro is damaging its economy, a view not shared by other euro countries or by Berès herself.
“The strong euro should not be used to disguise the inability of the current French government to profit from the economic growth in France,” she said.
And Berès does not share the views of French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and presidential hopeful Ségolène Royal, both of whom have called for reform of the ECB.
“That is not the issue,” she said. “What we need is to coordinate our economic policies and try to make progress in both tax and social policies.”
“We need a strong political representative to defend the views of the member states in discussion with the ECB, which has the sole right to set interest rates.”
Two other MEPs have criticised the wave of anti-ECB sentiment coming out of France.
German deputies Alexander Radwan and Werner Langen said the attacks on central bank policies were “playing with fire”.
The suggestion that the strong euro was to blame for France’s economic woes was described as “economic humbug” by the Germans.
“If this was the case, the German economy would have suffered too. But this is clearly not what has happened.”
Radwan criticised both Royal and fellow presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy for bringing the euro into the debate and “blaming it for home-grown mistakes” in economic policy.
Have your say...
Please enter your comments below.