Updated on
Summary Germany poured cold water on idea of a eurozone-wide banking union as a response to debt crisis.
It says that it was not helpful as a short-term solution.Asked about the European Commission and European Central Banks push for a banking union, a finance ministry spokesman said: We dont see now how such considerations would help to overcome the current questions.You know the fiscal pact is the beginning of the fiscal union and in the longer term you could imagine stricter oversight, he added, referring to the EUs treaty for greater budgetary discipline championed by Germany.Such questions will certainly be discussed at a forthcoming meeting of EU leaders in Brussels on June 28-29, the spokesman told a regular government news conference.As part of an annual analysis of all 27 EU states aimed at re-energising the debt-laden bloc, the Commission said Wednesday there was a need to complete monetary and economic union with a banking union.The proposal has since won backing from the ECB and the International Monetary Fund.Meanwhile, the German governments deputy spokesman Georg Streiter announced that Chancellor Angela Merkel would host Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso for talks in Berlin on Monday to prepare the June meeting.There would be no news conference after the talks, Streiter told reporters.
