Title:
Germany, France Seek 'True European Economic
Government'
Description: This is
a VOA Special English Economics Report.
See text below
Text:
Eleven countries first began to use the euro in
nineteen ninety-nine. Today seventeen of the
twenty-seven members of the European Union are in
the euro area.The euro's foreign exchange value has
remained strong against the dollar and other
currencies. But economic growth in the euro area was
only two-tenths of one percent from April to June.
Europe's biggest economy, Germany, grew at half that
rate. Ireland, Portugal and Greece have all required
rescues. Greece received emergency loans twice. Debt
and other problems in southern Europe remain a big
concern. In early August, the European Central Bank
bought more than thirty billion dollars in Italian
and Spanish debt securities. Italy and Spain have
yet to recover from the worldwide recession. The
purchases of their government debt helped reduce
their borrowing costs, but the bank will probably
have to act again. On August sixteenth, German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President
Nicolas Sarkozy met in Paris. They discussed
economic governance for the euro area and
cooperation on budget and tax policies. Chancellor
Merkel said, "We want France and Germany to move
closer in terms of fiscal integration." Their
proposal calls for a "true European economic
government." It would include the leaders of the
seventeen euro countries and would be led by the
European Union president. The group would meet at
least twice a year. One goal would be to control
budget deficits for euro area countries. Rules limit
the deficits of EU members to three percent of the
size of their economies. But many members, including
France, have bigger deficits than that. The two
leaders also proposed a tax on financial dealings in
Europe. But they did not support the idea of euro
bonds. These would be loans guaranteed by all euro
countries instead of only the governments seeking
them. The European Commission says it supports the
French and German proposals. The commission proposes
and enforces legislation for the EU. An EU spokesman
said, "We already mentioned the need to strengthen
the economic part of the economic and monetary
union. What is happening now since the beginning of
the crisis and what has been announced ... as a
proposal by France and Germany go exactly in this
direction."But many experts question whether
European countries will be willing to surrender
individual powers and deal with their debt problems
together. For VOA Special English, I'm Alex
Villarreal.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
