By Christian Kraemer and Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk
WARSAW, Feb 2 (Reuters) – Germany and Poland must take joint responsibility for an economic revival in Europe, the finance ministers of both countries said in Warsaw on Monday, as the continent’s growth remains sluggish compared to rivals such as the U.S. and China.
A relatively weak economy has compounded Europe’s challenges on multiple other fronts, with perceived security threats from Russia, trade and geopolitical disputes with the Trump administration and uncertainty over relations with Beijing.
“We need to make Europe more competitive,” Polish Finance Minister Andrzej Domanski said during a joint press conference with German Vice Chancellor and Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil.
“Both Poland and Germany are ready to create this impetus and to develop economic policies that will return Europe to an economic, rather than regulatory, power,” he said.
Klingbeil spoke about the transatlantic relationship and the marked changes it is undergoing.
“And we agree: precisely in this phase we must strengthen Europe and move Europe forward,” he said, in his first visit to Poland since he took office.
SIX EU ECONOMIES WANT FASTER DECISIONS
Klingbeil said the EU must become “faster, smarter, and more capable of dealing with complexity.”
Ministers from six leading European economies including Germany and Poland vowed on Wednesday to be the drivers of European progress, as they tackled how to advance projects stalled by the EU’s complex decision-making process.
“We have set ourselves the goal of deepening European cooperation, picking up speed, and also demanding this from the Commission,” Klingbeil said about last week’s video conference.
He said this was a first meeting and another will follow soon in Brussels.
“It’s less about adopting decisions now in a new format; it’s about finding common positions so that we can then push our decisions forward in the Eurogroup,” Klingbeil said, referring to the forum of euro zone finance ministers.
The idea of forging ad hoc coalitions allowing some EU countries to pursue projects without the need for agreement from all 27 member states has long tempted some and has already been applied to key projects including the euro currency.
“We must unwind the regulatory corset, simplify the law, reform our markets, and fully harness the power of the common European market and its nearly 500 million consumers,” said Domanski.
The Polish minister said Europe is in a race.
“A race for competitiveness, for building true economic strength, and to achieve this, we need to accelerate,” Domanski said.
(Reporting by Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk and Christian Kraemer, writing by Pawel Florkiewicz and Maria Martinez; Editing by Linda Pasquini and Toby Chopra)
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