Trichet calls for European finance ministry

“Jean-Claude Trichet calls for creation of European Finance Ministry,” headlines the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Speaking in Aachen, Germany, where he was awarded the Charlemagne Prize for his contribution to European integration, Jean-Claude Trichet, the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), proposed two levels of sanctions for European countries that mismanage their budgets, the German daily says. The first level would provide financial aid but under strict conditions including awarding control and monitoring rights to donor states. The second level “should be totally different from the current system of monitoring, of recommendations and of sanctions,” explains Trichet, who further proposes the creation of a European Finance Ministry “with the right to scrutinise budgetary and competition policies and with a right to directly manage the economic policies of the heavily indebted countries”. Such a proposal requires the ratification of the EU member states.

Competition policies and budgetary discipline are now the guidelines,” the Frankfurt daily notes, seeing the proposal as “a major centralisation of European economic policy. De facto there remains nothing of democracy in each country which will be asked to give up its sovereign rights,” the daily says. But Jean-Claude Trichet’s proposals have another motivation , according to the French daily Le Figaro: “By putting political power back in the European spotlight, [he’s] seeking to reconcile citizens with the euro.” A few weeks before being replaced by the Italian Mario Draghi at the head of theECB, Le Figaro continues, “Jean-Claude Trichet continues to ease his successor’s first steps by pre-empting debates that are sure to arise in the coming months.”