German Chancellor Angela Merkel said she wasn’t worried that the Greek prime minister Alexis Tsipras is heading to Russia next week.She said she andFrench President Francois Hollande“have also been to Moscow and we’re still members of the European Union and stand united.”
Merkel and Hollande held a joint meeting of the French and German cabinets in Berlin today. The Greek debt crisisfeatured highon the program, as well asthe Elysee’s economic reform plans and theconflict in eastern Ukraine. They also discussed matters of security, the economy and education.
The entire French cabinet, with the exception of prime minister Manuel Valls, waspresent at the 17th Franco-German summit of ministers in Berlin.Valls has chosen to stay in Paris to address socialist deputies.
In a press conference after the joint cabinet session, the two leaders said France and Germany have come closer in recent months, as they face terrorism in Paris and the Germanwings disaster together.
Merkel said that she is still optimistic that an economic reform plan will be agreed, but won’t be lured into setting a deadline:
Merkel also said thatGreeceneeded to stick to its commitments and though there was some leeway for the new government to make some changes, it needed to fulfill the general framework of what had been agreed.
"I said recently that time is of the essence -- that means there is no time to lose so I think we need to continue working," she added.
While other euro-area governments gave Greece until the end of June to present a plan and “I’m not counting the days,” Merkel said “the quicker Greece makes proposals, the quicker an agreement can be reached.”
Hollande said that “too much time” has been lost already, so reforms need to be settled as fast as possible.
In France, ex-president Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP party and its allies took over two thirds of the 102 local “departements” councils, the anti-immigration National Front got 62 of its candidates elected, a big jump from the 1 it had before the vote and Hollande’s Socialists limped in third, losing 26 of the 61 departements it held.
That makes French politics a three-party affair though the FN’s showing still represents less than 2 percent of the total and it did not manage to win control of any departements. Some in the Socialist party may demand a reversion to more traditional political ground but the reform-minded Valls is unlikely to agree.
http://www.neurope.eu/article/merkel-not-worried-about-tsipras-going-moscow