Polish presidential aide slams Franco-German push for separate eurozone budget

Krzysztof Szczerski, chief of staff to President Andrzej Duda, said that a separate budget for the 19-nation eurozone should not be created at the expense of the European Union as a whole.

Szczerski told public broadcaster Polish Radio that if France and Germany decided to make larger financial contributions to the eurozone, then it would be “an internal matter of these countries,” but if extra euro-area contributions “were to be made at the expense of their contributions to the general budget, then that would spell the end of the European Union."

Szczerski said that a separate budget for eurozone countries could frustrate the policy of supporting less developed EU members.

Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron this week hailed a “new chapter” for the single-currency euro area, according to reports.

After talks near Berlin on Tuesday, the two leaders said the planned new budget would be a tool to strengthen economic competitiveness in the currency union, the Reuters news agency has reported.

It quoted Merkel as saying that the budget would be used to strengthen economic convergence within the eurozone.

According to Polish Radio’s IAR news agency, details of the plan, including the size of the budget, are set to be worked out by eurozone ministers by the end of the year.

Forty-seven percent of Poles surveyed in December said that adopting the euro would be bad for their country, while only 14 percent said it would be beneficial.

(gs/pk)

Source: IAR/Polish Radio, Reuters