While the meeting is not expected to produce binding commitments, it will set a broad political direction for the European Commission, which is due to draw up proposals ahead of a formal summit in late March.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone around the table must \u2026 face a moment of truth,\u201d said Manfred Weber, leader of the European People\u2019s Party, whose members include German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.\u00a0Leaders should \u201cnot complain about each other\u201d but do their \u201chomework\u201d to ensure reforms can be completed, he added.<\/p>\n
Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna told POLITICO ahead of the summit that \u201cEurope has lots of leverage. We just need to stick together and make decisions \u2026 instead of whining and complaining, we need to understand that through strength Europe will actually have [a firm] position.\u201d<\/p>\n
A glaring example is the recent disagreement between EU powerhouses France and Germany, whose leaders clashed over Emmanuel Macron\u2019s refusal to endorse the EU-Mercosur trade deal. In an interview published Tuesday by several European newspapers, the French president trumpeted the need for joint European borrowing to finance ambitious industrial and defense projects \u2014 a call that was promptly rebuffed by Germany<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cYou will have seen the interview with the French president published today,\u201d said a senior German government official, granted anonymity to discuss sensitive summit preparations. \u201cWe think that \u2026 this distracts a little from what it\u2019s actually all about, namely that we have a productivity problem.\u201d<\/p>\n Other capitals were quick to chime in. \u201c[It\u2019s] good that Macron sees the need to invest in Europe\u2019s future economy,\u201d said an EU diplomat from a mid-sized country. But, the diplomat added, such a push amounts to \u201cdaydreaming\u201d given the possibility to spend via the EU\u2019s long-term budget.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the meeting is not expected to produce binding commitments, it will set a broad political direction for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":756342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[11783,1194,9654,17468,6641,32,34,2000,299,5187,36,1945,1824,2440,366,2199,30995,33109,46027,6861,7497,6648,2824,1201,49,1220],"class_list":["post-756341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-antonio-costa","tag-budget","tag-capital-markets","tag-capital-markets-union","tag-competitiveness","tag-donald-trump","tag-emmanuel-macron","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-france","tag-friedrich-merz","tag-germany","tag-giorgia-meloni","tag-greenland","tag-italy","tag-manfred-weber","tag-mario-draghi","tag-public-procurement","tag-single-market","tag-strategic-autonomy","tag-supply-chains","tag-tanks","tag-trade","tag-united-states","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116049933188675930","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/756342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}