During their meeting in Berlin on Monday 22 May, the German finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble, and his French counterpart for the economy, Bruno Le Maire, announced that work on corporate and investment tax would speed up. Upstream of the Eurogroup held in Brussels on the same day, Schäuble still had misgivings over the technical solutions for Greece.
Speaking in German and addressing his friend “Wolfgang” using the familiar “du” form, the new French economy minister took pains to send out the very clear message that France and Germany are very much on the same wavelength.
The two ministers announced a joint working group to make progress towards Eurogroup integration. A roadmap will be drawn up at the forthcoming Franco-German ministerial meeting in July. “We need to go further, faster”, Le Maire told the press.
The first item on the agenda is tax convergence and corporate taxation. The two ministers also announced greater coordination of economic policies and, “Wolfgang’s very positive idea”, an evaluation of possible investment initiatives, Le Maire explained. Creating a European monetary fund is also an interesting idea that “we will be working on”.
Germany has faith in France
In passing, Le Maire sought to give Germany reassurances. “France will keep its European commitments in terms of reducing deficits”, he said; “we will not do so to please Europe or to please Germany, but because it is good for France”. In particular, he promised progress on the employment market reform, “a subject we have been discussing with Wolfgang for ten years”.
“Germany has total faith in France. It is not for us to judge what others are doing”, Schäuble replied. His comments about Athens, on the other hand, were considerably tougher.
No new Greek plan without Bundestag’s opinion
The German Foreign Minister, Sigmar Gabriel (SPD), gave rise to a little hope by calling for debt relief for Greece in Monday’s edition of the German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. In France, Emmanuel Macron also spoke of a solution to “reduce Greece’s debt in the long term”.
Before leaving for Brussels, Schäuble himself was far less encouraging, explaining that there can be no revision of the plan adopted for Greece in 2015 without the approval of the Bundestag. He stressed that he could not promise Brussels anything that German law prohibits him from giving. “The aim is still to help Greece to be competitive” and structural reforms are required to achieve this, he observed.
Before departing for Brussels and the Eurogroup, however, Le Maire paid tribute to the Greek government’s political courage and hoped for a technical solution that will reassure the Greek population, “but, obviously, the creditors as well”. He is expected to spend the whole evening there, whilst Schäuble hoped to return before night.
The text of the joint press release is available in French at: http://proxy-pubminefi.diffusion.finances.gouv.fr/pub/document/18/22459.pdf . (Original version in French by Nathalie Steiwer)