admin“The government has made clear that the European debt crisis can’t be solved in one fell swoop overnight. There is no miracle solution. There is no easy, rapid solution,” Merkel told parliament. “Resolving the sovereign debt crisis is a process and this process will take years.”
Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy are pushing for a reorganisation of existing EU regulations, in order to ensure the eurozone’s long-term stability and win back the trust of markets.
In laying out to the lower house of parliament plans she will take to a 9 December EU summit in Brussels, Merkel insisted the 17 nations that use the euro currency need to strengthen EU institutions and eurozone financial regulations.
She called for closer supervision of national budgets, coupled with legal regulations that would allow for stronger enforcement of spending rules.
“In order to win back trust, we need to do more, where we today have agreements, we need in the future to have legally binding regulations,” Merkel said.
The eurozone’s current budget rules have been violated about 60 times over the past decade by a number of nations — including Germany — but no country has been seriously punished.
To ensure that nations are keeping their budgets in check with the limits of the stability pact — deficits not more than three percent of gross domestic product and overall government debt of not more than 60 percent of GDP.
Germany is pushing for the right to take countries in violation before the European Court of Justice.
Merkel spoke a day after Sarkozy warned against handing over control to a supra-national body in Brussels. “The reform of Europe is not a march towards supra-nationality,” Sarkozy said in the French city of Toulon. — Al Jazeera.
Online Reporter