Brussels, 18/07/2014 (Agence Europe) - Which country will get the economic and monetary affairs commissioner job formerly held by Olli Rehn and now temporarily held by Jyrki Katainen? German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble expressed doubt on Friday 18 July that the job would go to France.
On German public radio Deutschlandfunk, Schauble asked how public opinion would react, not only in France but in the whole of Europe, if such a job was held by a French candidate, AFP reports. He said that the wise people who are making the decision have to think about that, too, before they decide. Schauble said his comments were not aimed as a criticism of Pierre Moscovici, the French finance minister under François Hollande, whom Schauble said he admired.
Moscovici is reported by PaperJam to have said in Luxembourg that France was a serous country, that it could not be disqualified for nothing and it was a country to be trusted.
He pointed out that France had twice been granted more time to reduce its deficit and argued that talking about the matter created uncertainty rather than confidence.
Finnish national Jyrki Katainen, who started in the post at the European Commission on Friday, seemed to share this view completely. He said in an interview with Spanish newspaper El Pais on Friday that there could be flexibility when needed, depending on the situation in the country in question and the efforts made by the government. In an interview with Reuters earlier in the week, he warned about fatigue reform in the member states: “If we send a message that we are too tired to put our house in order and we allow public debt to grow again, that reforms are too difficult politically ... it might lead to spreads growing again.'
If Katainen remains a commissioner in the new European Commission he is unlikely to keep the economic and monetary affairs job. The Socialists recently said that the new president of the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxembourg, has promised them the job. At a press conference at the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Tuesday, Juncker said that no job and nobody for any job has yet been decided and he had only cautiously given initial indications.
Some commentators say agreement has already been reached on Moscovici, who has unofficially been actively campaigning and having meeting after meeting particularly in Luxembourg, where he has met the director general of the European Stability Mechanism, Klaus Regling, the president of the European Investment Bank, Werner Hoyer, the prime minister of Luxembourg, Xavier Bettel, and the finance minister of Luxembourg, Pierre Gramegna. (EL)