Brussels, 31/03/2015 (Agence Europe) - France and Germany want to issue common proposals on projects to be submitted under the Juncker Plan (for investment) and with a view to reform of economic and monetary union (EMU).
Speaking in Berlin on Tuesday 31 March after the 17th Franco-German ministerial meeting, the French president, François Hollande, said the two countries had discussed what they could do to support private investment. When it comes to energy, he said, recommendations had been made to secure supply and have prices that reflect risks to the planet through the setting of a price for carbon and developing common projects under the Juncker Plan. France and Germany will each contribute €8 billion for the co-financing via their public investment banks of projects submitted under the Juncker Plan (see EUROPE 11271 and 11277).
Hollande promised that despite the heavy losses suffered by the socialist party in local elections, the push for economic reforms would continue unabated, and there was coherence in what had been begun and was starting to bear fruit.
On the fringes of the conference, the French and German finance ministers signed a tax agreement to simplify the taxation of pensions and change the way cross-border workers are managed. They will be sending a joint letter to the European Commission calling for measures to fight the financing of terrorism (freezing of terrorist assets, greater traceability of the flows of money, investigating anonymous payments and centralised identification of bank accounts).
Paris and Berlin confirmed their participation in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which they said would be operated in an effective, ethical and fair way, according to a press release from the French finance ministry (see EUROPE 11285). (Mathieu Bion)