Hot from the meeting with Merkel, Putin and Poroshenko, where they managed to hammer out a gas deal, the French president is back to moaning about everything.
- Europe is threatened with stagnation
- Stagnation is a greater risk than deflation
- French growth isn’t strong enough to cut unemployment
- European countries need to boost demand
- European budget rules must be respected (did he say that with a straight face)
- Flexibility in budget rules need to be used
While Hollande was upbeat about the gas talks, Merkel and Poroshenko have been less than chuffed. Merkel seems to think that the talks came to a stalemate and Poroshenko is just out saying that there was no practical results from the talks. Running back over the headlines there were discussions about many issues to do with the conflict which is what the comments from MErkel and Poroshenko mainly refer to. The gas deal is now subject to sorting out the finances of it all.
