ASBERG, Germany: The leaders of Germany and France clashed over plans to monitor Europe’s crisis-hit banks yesterday, overshadowing anniversary celebrations of a symbolic step in their post-war reconciliation.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Francois Hollande had gathered at the Baroque palace in Ludwigsburg, southwest Germany, where Charles de Gaulle gave a watershed speech to German youth in 1962.
But despite affirmations that European unity was the only way out of the debt turmoil lashing the euro, they differed over a key plank of crisis-fighting: tighter checks on the European banking sector. “I support a banking union, it is an important measure and we must proceed step-by-step,” Hollande told reporters, while stressing that such a framework should be in place “the earlier the better”.
Merkel, for her part, said Berlin also backed European oversight of lenders but urged a more cautious approach, saying haste could prove costly. “For me it is important that quality is ensured. It is pointless to do something very quickly that in the end doesn’t work,” she said.
“It must be thorough, it must be of good quality and then we’ll see how long it takes. We will get our finance ministers to work with each other on it as quickly as possible.”
EU leaders agreed the new bank supervision system in June as part of a deal to allow the bloc’s rescue funds to lend directly to stricken banks instead of passing aid through countries and so adding to their debt woes. It is a first step towards a banking union and dovetails with moves towards the deeper economic and political cooperation aimed at taming the debt crisis which has brought the eurozone economy to a standstill.
AFP
