German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said not much is possible in Europe without Franco-German agreement. She was defending a deal struck between Paris and Berlin on European budgetary rules, which has been criticised by the head of the euro group of countries.
'It is true that a Franco-German agreement is not everything in Europe. But without a Franco-German agreement, not much is possible,' Merkel said in a speech to the German parliament ahead of a crunch EU summit on Thursday.
She also reiterated her demand that the EU treaties should be changed to incorporate the proposed alterations. 'We need a new, robust framework. It must be legally watertight and this will happen only with a change of the treaties,' Merkel said.
At a meeting in the French town of Deauville last Monday, Merkel and French president Nicolas Sarkozy agreed to toughen penalties for countries which breach EU budget rules, allowing for their voting rights to be temporarily removed in extreme cases.
The deal also calls for the creation of a permanent safety fund for countries in difficulty, a French demand that was formerly opposed by Germany. But many countries have taken umbrage at the way a deal was wrapped up between the two European powerhouses without reference to smaller nations.
The head of the euro group said this style was 'simply impossible'. In an interview to appear in Thursday's Die Welt newspaper, Jean-Claude Juncker said: 'This agreement is not acceptable in its current form, because it does not guarantee a strict course of stability nor a stability pact with bite.'
The European parliament's main political groups have also accused France and Germany of imposing their will on the rest of the EU, with one describing the Deauville accord as a 'diktat'.
