EU should control member states' budgets, says bank boss

Guardian
June 2, 2011

A long-term solution to the crises rippling through the 17-nation eurozone will require the creation of a central finance ministry with the power to exercise controls over national budgets, Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank, said on Thursday.

Speaking in Aachen in Germany, Trichet urged closer European integration as the means of imposing discipline on countries which failed to keep their public finances in order, monitor economic reform and provide a common approach to dealing with Europe's financial sector.

The ECB president said his plan would fall short of giving a pan-European finance ministry tax-raising powers, but suggested that the idea was a logical next step.

"In this union of tomorrow, or of the day after tomorrow, would it be too bold, in the economic field, with a single market and a single central bank, to envisage a ministry of finance of the union?" he said as he accepted the Charlemagne prize for contributions to European unity.

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