French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire demanded higher investment from Mrs Merkel in another scathing attack proving German-Franco relations are continuing to nose-dive. Mr Le Maire said Germany has “scope for more spending”, reports German publication Süddeutsche Zeitung. Germany could do more to counter the weak economic growth in the Eurozone, he added.
The French minister also warned their lack of public investment could lead to a Europe-wide economic crisis.
He demanded: “Now it’s up to governments to help with budgetary funds.”
Mr Le Maire echoed the view of French President Emmanuel Macron, who recently described the EU maximum deficit limit of three percent in an interview with The Economist as a “debate from the past century”.
She said the rule is “not a strategic core issue”.
The French President said instead, the EU should look after European sovereignty, which depends “massively on investments in future technology”.
Mr Le Maire also defended the controversial NATO criticism of Macron, who had called his Transatlantic Alliance “brain dead”.
The Finance Minister said the diagnosis of the president was “simply clear-sighted”.
The comments come after Mr Macron and Mrs Merkel announced they had drawn up a two-year blueprint to give the European Union a much-needed democratic overhaul.
The EU heavyweights have proposed a “Conference on the Future of Europe” to “address all issues at stake” as the bloc seeks to rebuild after Brexit.
Initial talks will focus on “EU democratic functioning” and its process for selecting future leaders after an institutional row over Ursula von der Leyen’s appointment as European Commission president.
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The German was eventually appointed after a backroom stitch-up by EU leaders, much to the frustrations of the democratically elected members of the European Parliament.
The plan promises a “bottom-up process” allowing EU taxpayers to finally vent their frustrations and help shape the Brussels project’s future.
The Franco-German non-paper says: “As proposed by the new European Commission, the process should follow two phases, on the basis of on inter-institutional mandate to be agreed in January 2020.
“The mandate / institutional setting could be simplified for phase 1, to ensure an early start.
“Phase one would start as early as February 2020, until the summer of 2020, and focus on issues related to EU democratic functioning.”
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Senior EU figures want the so-called Spitzenkandidaten process overhauled after it was ignored by leaders to select Mrs von der Leyen as Commission chief.
Senior German MEP Manfred Weber decried the way Mrs von der Leyen was handpicked by EU leaders.
Writing for Politico, he said: “The Parliament’s democratic mandate is beyond doubt. More than 200 million people voted in the last European Parliament election — nearly 50 percent more than in the last presidential election in the United States.
“And yet, there are many in Brussels and other European capitals who prefer to make decisions through quick backroom deals, in which the direct choice of the voters becomes victim to personal power games.
“As members of the Parliament, we failed in our attempt to put in place a lead-candidate — or Spitzenkandidat — system to allow European citizens an opportunity to elect the president of the Commission. But we cannot stay licking our wounds.
“The time has come to adjust our checks and balances and give more weight to parliamentary democracy.
Indeed, we have a duty to translate the interests and concerns of the people who have voted for us into a representative voice in EU decision-making.”
Germany will become the conference’s first arbiter in the second phase when the country takes over the bloc’s rotating presidency in July next year.
France will become its final overseer just two years later when Paris holds the same role.
Additional reporting by Monika Pallenberg.