MOSCOW, November 24 (Sputnik) — Head of German Finance Ministry Wolfgang Schaeuble spoke out Sunday in favour of authorizing the EU to have a veto power over member states’ budgets that violate eurozone’s fiscal targets after France has failed to curb its budget deficit.
In his opinion, the eurozone needs more unity in order to enhance its fiscal performance. At the same time, such a move would not violate fiscal legislation of member states as national legislatures have the ultimate say on budget’s income and spending.
"This does not violate national budget laws. The parliaments of the member states concerned can still decide whether to cut spending, increase taxes or introduce other pro-growth reforms," he said as quoted by the Daily Star. "We need to show that we want to jointly proceed toward a fiscal union," he stressed.
"That means that the eurozone states commit themselves to reducing debt. It must be clear that we want to anchor the euro irrevocably, permanently. We have achieved this with the banking union but not yet with the fiscal union," German FM said.
The EU executive body must, within a week (until 30 November), publish its opinions on the budgets of all 18 eurozone member states. France’s 2015 budget is the most frustrating for a major economy, as its deficit reaches 4.3% GDP and the nation can only meet the EU deficit criteria by 2017, according to French FM Michel Sapin. German commissioner Guenther Oettinger has already dubbed France a "deficit recidivist", insisting the nation has to implement comprehensive reforms.
On his part. German FM Schaeuble stressed that only a supranational body can effectively manage the risks to stability of the euro.
"I would prefer that a European institution enforce the rules," he said. It will not be easy to amend the EU Treaty though as it requires a positive vote of all 29 member states, he admitted.
"But we should at least equip the economic and monetary affairs commissioner with the same rights as our competition commissioner," Schaeuble said.
