Merkel Warns Italy and France Over Slow Growth

Angela Merkel has delivered a sharp rebuke to Italy and France for hindering the eurozone’s recovery by breaking longstanding fiscal rules.

The German chancellor, under pressure following a fall in GDP in the second quarter, said faltering growth was the direct result of the 18-member currency zone’s inability to punish those countries that ran high deficits in contravention of limits set by Brussels.

She said Germany had shown it was possible to cut the government’s annual spending deficit while at the same time improve the economic situation.

Speaking to an audience of Nobel prize-winning economists in the Bavarian town of Lindau, she said individual countries had ignored Brussels and the European Central Bank (ECB) to continue running larger deficits than allowed by the fiscal rules. “We have very little, if any, possibility of sanctioning those countries that break the rules,” she said.

via The Guardian

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