BERLIN (MNI) – Germany’s main opposition party, the center-left
SPD, doubts that the EU fiscal compact will still be ratified in Germany
before the summer break, SPD parliamentary leader Frank-Walter
Steinmeier said Tuesday.
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right coalition government needs
the support of the opposition to ratify the fiscal compact given that it
involves changes to the German constitution which require a two-thirds
majority in both houses of parliament.
Steinmeier said that the initial date to pass the fiscal compact
together with the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) on May 25 in the
German parliament was already off the table. “The government has
underestimated the need for negotiations,” the SPD parliamentary leader
said.
There still is a broad need for talks on the fiscal compact both
with the opposition parliamentary groups in the lower house, the
Bundestag, as well as with the regional states in the upper house, the
Bundesrat, Steinmeier said. He called it “very, very ambitious” for the
government to assume it could push the fiscal compact through parliament
still before the summer break.
Together with SPD party leader Sigmar Gabriel and former finance
minister Peer Steinbrueck, Steinmeier reaffirmed the SPD’s demand that
along with the fiscal compact there needs to be an European growth pact
to counter the debt crisis.
Gabriel claimed that Merkel had already accepted the necessity of
such a growth pact, the question was now how that pact would look like.
“I’m quite optimistic,” he said, noting that the chancellor was aware
that France would not ratify the fiscal compact without an additional
growth chapter.
The new French President Francois Hollande is to meet Merkel this
afternoon in Berlin. A joint press conference is scheduled for around
17:45 GMT.
–Berlin bureau: +49-30-22 62 05 80; email: twidder@marketnews.com
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