(Bloomberg) — Luxembourg’s prime minister said political instability in Germany, France and other nations is slowing the European Union’s agenda as the bloc seeks to boost competitiveness and prepare for Donald Trump’s second presidency.
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“That is indeed complicated,” Luc Frieden said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Brussels Wednesday when asked about the fallout engulfing governments in Berlin and Paris. “There are very few — at least in the region I’m coming from — very few stable governments right now.”
The EU’s two biggest economies have been thrown into uncertainty just as the 27-member bloc prepares for the potential twin blows of a trade conflict and a halt to US aid to Ukraine with Trump in the White House.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz this week set in motion a path to early elections in February after the collapse of his three-way coalition, while France’s Emmanuel Macron is struggling to break a deadlock in parliament after an inconclusive snap election in June. The French president last week named the country’s fourth prime minister in a year.
Luxembourg is wedged between the two. Frieden, who has led the government of the grand duchy for just over a year, also cited Belgium — itself in the throes of coalition talks after a June election — among member states operating without strong, elected majorities. The uncertainty is weighing on EU measures to better compete with global rivals.
“I hope that once this will be clarified, in some of our neighboring states, that we will move on on the competitiveness agenda,” Frieden said.
The prime minister, who spoke ahead of a series of meetings among European leaders in the Belgian capital, said the bloc needs to work with Trump and maintain a channel to its biggest trading partner. At the same time, he called for an “ambitious sovereign European agenda.”
“We must tell the US what we want and we want to be sovereign on many issues,” Frieden said, citing the need to bolster European competitiveness, defense and industrial policy.
The premier reinforced a call for scaled back regulation on financial services in the bloc and for progress on unifying a fragmented financial infrastructure into a so-called capital markets union. For the latter, he backed an effort by all 27 members before turning to piecemeal cooperation.
Frieden has led Luxembourg after a surprise comeback to front line politics from a period working in the private sector, including as vice chairman of Deutsche Bank AG. He previously served as the country’s finance minister.
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Publish date : 2024-12-18 08:13:00
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