European central bankers call for eurozone finance ministry
The eurozone needs a stronger regulatory framework, including its own finance ministry, to deliver sustainable growth and create more jobs, the leaders of the French and German central banks wrote in a German newspaper this morning.
In an article for the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann and Bank of France Chief Francois Villeroy de Galhau said that the European Central Bank’s monetary policy could not create sustainable economic growth.
Instead they called for a raft of new measures including a decisive programme for structural reforms, an ambitious financing and investment union as well as better economic policy framework.
They also called for the creation of a common finance ministry in connection with an independent fiscal council – as proposed in EU Commission chief Jean-Claude Juncker’s Five Presidents' Report last year – and the formation of a stronger political body that meets policy decisions.
"Stronger integration appears to be the obvious way to restore trust in the eurozone, for this would favour the development of joint strategies for state finances and reforms so as to promote growth," they said.
Matthew Elliott, chief executive of Vote Leave said such a move towards further integration would only hand over more money and more power to Brussels and showed the clear danger of voting to stay in the EU.
“The EU is set to integrate further and will sideline Britain even more than it does today. The only safe option is to Vote Leave,” he told City PM