PARIS (Reuters) – Paris and Berlin are close to reaching a “100 percent” agreement on how to reform the European Union’s fiscal rules, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said, adding he believed he will be able to strike a deal on the issue with his German counterpart on Tuesday evening.
“I am certain that we will have it tonight”, Le Maire said before heading into talks with German Finance Minister Christian Lindner, who came to Paris on short notice in a bid to reach a joint Franco-German position before the year’s last EU finance ministers’ meeting on Wednesday.
The two countries, the EU’s largest, are at odds on how to sustain investment when budget deficits exceed the EU limit. Other member states, roughly rallying in two camps behind Paris and Berlin, are wrangling over other issues.
In remarks to the press ahead of their meeting, Germany’s finance minister adopted a more defensive tone, saying that the two countries were still discussing “exact figures” on debt reduction.
“There are some technical questions to be clarified. We still have to agree on some numbers,” Lindner said, adding that he was confident EU member states can reach a “political agreement” on the fiscal rules this week.
The main issue left to agree between Paris and Berlin is how quickly a country with a deficit above the EU limit of 3% of GDP should cut it, while at the same time having enough money to invest and reform.
France wants a slower pace to retain more cash for investment, while Germany wants a faster reduction.
(Reporting by Tassilo Hummel in Paris and Maria Martinez in Berlin, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)
