Sunday

28th May 2023

Cameron meets Merkel to discuss EU powers

  • Cameron and Merkel recently found common ground on the EU budget (Photo: consilium.europa.eu)

British Prime Minister David Cameron is travelling to Germany for a family weekend at Angela Merkel's holiday retreat, where he will try to convince the Chancellor to back him on re-evaluating EU's powers.

Cameron is set to arrive in Meseberg - a Prussian summer residence 70km north of Berlin - on Friday evening (12 April) together with his wife Samantha and their three children.

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Become an expert on Europe

Get instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

Merkel will meet Cameron there at 18h00 and show him around the castle. Another meeting is scheduled for Saturday morning at 9.30.

On the agenda, according to a German government spokesman, are bilateral and European issues - including Britain's desire for a revamp of EU powers - as well as the situation in Syria, Iran's nuclear programme and an upcoming G8 meeting in northern Ireland under British chairmanship.

The meeting comes after Cameron had to abruptly interrupt his European tour after the death of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

In an interview with five newspapers ahead of his trip, Cameron said his visit was more than just to present a "shopping list" of British demands, after his key speech earlier this year announcing a complete review of EU powers followed by a referendum on the British membership in 2017.

Cameron has since tried to get Berlin, Paris and Madrid on board for his "reform" agenda, but a questionnaire on EU powers sent to the mainland European capitals was ignored in France and Germany.

But Merkel is not completely against Cameron's reformist push and is likely to find some common ground, as she did during the EU budget negotiations when Germany sided with Britain on more budget cuts.

“The thing we do agree about is that the European Commission should start doing less,” Cameron said.

"I think this should be a discussion across Europe about how we make the European Union more flexible, and how we make clear that powers can flow back to nation states as well as flow forward to the European Union," he added.

Repatriation of powers is also a topic for the more Conservative wing in Merkel's party - but not on economic affairs where Merkel wants to see a bigger role for Brussels in controlling profligate states.

With general elections coming up in September, Merkel is unlikely to commit to any radical overhaul of EU powers. But she may find some support for her pet projects: free trade agreements with countries such as the US and India, which she is convinced will help the European economy better recover than bailouts.

Merkel spends family weekend with Cameron

A family week-end at a German castle allowed the German Chancellor and the British Prime Minister to seek common ground on an EU-US trade agreement and the fight against tax evasion.

MEPs to urge block on Hungary taking EU presidency in 2024

"This will be the first time a member state that is under the Article 7 procedure will take over the rotating presidency of the council," French Green MEP Gwendoline Delbos-Corfield, the key lawmaker on Hungary, warned.

European Parliament scales back luxury MEP pension fund

The European Parliament's Bureau, a political body composed of the president and its vice-presidents, decided to slash payouts from the fund by 50 percent, freeze automatic indexations, and increase the pension age from 65 to 67.

WhoisWho? Calls mount to bring back EU directory

NGOs and lobbyists slammed the EU commission for removing contact details of non-managerial staff from its public register, arguing that the institution is now less transparent.

Exclusive

MEP luxury pension held corporate assets in tax havens

While the European Parliament was demanding a clamp down on tax havens, many of its own MEPs were using their monthly office allowances to finance a luxury pension scheme that held corporate assets in the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and elsewhere.

Column

What a Spanish novelist can teach us about communality

In a world where cultural clashes and sectarianism seems to be on the increase, Spanish novelist Javier Cercas (b.1962) takes the opposite approach. He cherishes both life in the big city and in the countryside.

Opinion

Poland and Hungary's ugly divorce over Ukraine

What started in 2015 as a 'friends-with-benefits' relationship between Viktor Orbán and Jarosław Kaczyński, for Hungary and Poland, is ending in disgust and enmity — which will not be overcome until both leaders leave.

Latest News

  1. How the EU's money for waste went to waste in Lebanon
  2. EU criminal complicity in Libya needs recognition, says expert
  3. Europe's missing mails
  4. MEPs to urge block on Hungary taking EU presidency in 2024
  5. PFAS 'forever chemicals' cost society €16 trillion a year
  6. EU will 'react as appropriate' to Russian nukes in Belarus
  7. The EU needs to foster tech — not just regulate it
  8. EU: national energy price-spike measures should end this year

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. International Sustainable Finance CentreJoin CEE Sustainable Finance Summit, 15 – 19 May 2023, high-level event for finance & business
  2. ICLEISeven actionable measures to make food procurement in Europe more sustainable
  3. World BankWorld Bank Report Highlights Role of Human Development for a Successful Green Transition in Europe
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersNordic summit to step up the fight against food loss and waste
  5. Nordic Council of MinistersThink-tank: Strengthen co-operation around tech giants’ influence in the Nordics
  6. EFBWWEFBWW calls for the EC to stop exploitation in subcontracting chains

Join EUobserver

Support quality EU news

Join us