Widening differences over economic policy among Euro area countries are unsustainable and could undermine the currency union itself, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said on Friday.There isn't enough solidarity in the Euro-zone, Le Maire told reporters on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank Spring meetings.
French lawmakers on Monday approved a new tax on digital giants such as Facebook and Apple that has angered the United States, with Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire boasting that France was proud to be in the vanguard of such a move.
Britain's opposition Labour Party said on Friday that talks with the government on a last-ditch Brexit deal had made no progress, as EU leaders said Prime Minister Theresa May had not convinced them that they should let Britain delay its departure next week.
Despite EU and Mercosur countries remaining committed to reaching a trade agreement, the European Commission did not endorse the South American bloc’s target to reach an agreement by September, as substantial gaps remain between the two sides.
Finance ministers and central bankers from the world’s largest economies said on Sunday that heightened trade and geopolitical tensions risk derailing global growth and called for greater dialogue, according to the final communique of a G20 meeting.
France said it was ready to seek other buyers for its biggest shipyard should Italy refuse a 50-50 ownership split, before both countries pledged to find a solution next month. French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire, told the Corriere della Sera daily that a deal with Fincantieri might not be thrashed out.
World food prices that rose 37% in a year, driving 44 million more people into poverty, are a “plague” that needs action from world leaders now, said French President Nicolas Sarkozy during the two-day Group of 20 agriculture ministers in Paris.
The best way to cool soaring food prices is to boost output, the Argentine government said, following talks on a French proposal for increased regulation of commodity markets in the framework of a G20 meeting in Buenos Aires.
A trade agreement with Mercosur should not have to destroy the European beef industry, said on Tuesday a spokesperson for the European Community who added that such fears are ‘exaggerated’.
France warned Tuesday that it is following closely European Union/Mercosur trade talks to ensure that farmers from both blocks are strictly subjected to the same rules.