Merkel calls for deeper EU integration

German chancellor Angela Merkel will step up calls for deeper European integration via treaty change when she attends this year's final meeting of EU leaders today in Brussels.

Devoting her first third term Bundestag address yesterday to European affairs, Dr Merkel said the euro crisis and its aftermath made clear it made "no sense" to separate domestic and EU affairs.

She praised Ireland’s reform efforts and EU-IMF programme exit but stressed Europe needed further reforms to protect against future shocks.

“In Ireland and Spain we have two countries who can harvest the fruits of their reforms, I can only congratulate them,” she said.

The German leader urged other member states to embrace further competence transfer to the EU – requiring a referendum in Ireland – to complete reform of the currency bloc.

Treaty change
She rejected oft-heard claims in Brussels, particularly over the banking union, that Berlin was a hindrance to greater European integration. Germany was ready for competence transfers to Brussels, she said, arguing that serious and necessary reform was being held up by those who viewed the current Lisbon Treaty as sacrosanct.

“I know that it is difficult to get through changes in some member states, but whoever wants more Europe has to be ready to change the treaties,” she said.

Senior Berlin officials said yesterday they would be pushing their case for reopening the treaties – requiring a referendum in Ireland – once more at today’s Brussels meeting.

“We are not trying to blackmail anyone, we’re trying to convince people that it is necessary to develop the treaties further if you are to learn the right lessons from the crisis,” said a senior German official. “We are trying to convince people that it is in interest of all in the economic and currency union to think anew after the crisis . . . and structure the union better in the long term.”

Contractual arrangements
The German leader will urge her European colleagues to move beyond the habit of "promising a lot and delivering little" and progress a Franco-German proposal for so-called contractual arrangements.

Under this idea member states that commit to additional reform targets with the European Commission would be eligible for financial subsidies.