German finance minister Wolfgang Schaeuble had a dream and that dream was a core of European countries with an inner parliament. He got fairly short shrift then but he’s back banging the drum again.
Following on his comments moments ago he went on to push his project saying;
- Euro region should have its own parliament
- Region still needs structural reforms
- Must continue solving Euro woes with existing tools
- Urges commission powers to block national budgets
- Stable Euro needs implementation of agreed policies
- Says EU rules must become gradually more binding
The FT had an article out directly from Schaeuble and he reiterated the comments in a speech in Berlin today.
It’s no surprise that he’s pushing for greater integration once again. Europe’s population are seeing that for all the austerity they are no better off and governments are also saying that something other than austerity needs to be done to boost growth. Can Schaeuble make a better sales pitch for his plan or will he be knocked back again? Many countries happily gave up many of their national controls to be part of the European project but will they see the plan to give up even more as their way out of the mess Europe is in?
I know of at least one country that will tell him where to go. No prizes for guessing who
