France’s president-elect Francois Hollande warned fellow European leaders yesterday that he would push ahead with his vow to refocus EU fiscal efforts from austerity to growth.
Austerity can no longer be the only option
“Europe is watching us,” Mr Hollande told cheering supporters shortly after his defeat of right-wing incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy was confirmed.
“I am sure that when the result was announced, in many European countries there was relief, hope and the notion that finally austerity can no longer be the only option,” he said.
“And this is the mission that is now mine – to give the European project a dimension of growth, employment, prosperity: in short, a future,” he said.
“This is what I will say as soon as possible to our European partners and first of all to Germany, in the name of the friendship that links us and in the name of our shared responsibility.”
“We are not just any country on the planet, just any nation in the world, we are France.”
European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso congratulated Francois Hollande on his French presidential victory and said he shared his goal for jumpstarting Europe’s economy.
“On a personal note and in the name of the European Commission, I warmly congratulate Francois Hollande on this important victory,” Mr Barroso said.
“I know I can count on the convictions and personal commitment of Francois Hollande to push European integration forward,” said the President of the European Union’s executive arm.
“We clearly have a common objective: relaunching the European economy to generate durable growth,” he said. “We must now transform these aspirations into concrete actions.”
Mr Barroso said the commission shares Mr Hollande’s belief in the need to invest in growth and large infrastructure networks by relying more on the European Investment Bank and the EU budget, while continuing to slash budgets and debts.
He welcomed Mr Hollande’s support for a tax on financial transactions and his backing for a proposal to issue European bonds aimed at spurring growth.
“I welcome this new cooperation with Francois Hollande, in a constructive spirit of exchanges and openess.
“I will be very happy to meet him in the very near future,” Mr Barroso said.
The European Commission also warmly saluted Mr Sarkozy “for his action over the past five years”. “Nicolas Sarkozy was an ardent defender of the euro and, with the support of his partners and the commission, an architect of a new European economic governance,” he said.
Meanwhile, Germany’s foreign minister said yesterday that Berlin would work with France on mapping out a growth pact for Europe, as he hailed Francois Hollande’s election as French president as an “historic event”.
Speaking to reporters at the French embassy in Berlin, Guido Westerwelle sought to allay fears that a change of power in Paris would put the brakes on the Franco-German motor that has driven Europe through the crisis.
“We will work together on a growth pact” for the embattled European economy, Westerwelle said – referring to a key campaign theme for Mr Hollande that irked Berlin, which had placed more emphasis on austerity as a way out of the crisis.
“I have no doubt that we will rise toour common challenges,” Mr Westerwelle added, after Mr Hollande ousted Mr Sarkozy, whom Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel had backed for a second term.
He said Mr Hollande’s victory, which made him France’s first Socialist President since 1995, was an “historic event” and said he looked forward to a “close partnership” between the two nations.
“I am confident the Franco-German friendship will be further deepened,” Mr Westerwelle said, adding that Europe was at its most effective when its two strongest economies stood side-by-side.
In the run-up to election day, the campaign was dominated by a debate over whether austerity, demanded by Germany, or growth, pushed by Mr Hollande, was the best tonic for the ailing eurozone.
Mr Hollande won few friends in Berlin by criticising the chancellor’s insistence on austerity as the way out of the crisis.
Since then, both camps have sought to smooth ruffled feathers, with Merkel shifting her crisis-fighting rhetoric more towards growth and Mr Hollande’s advisers stressing the importance of Franco-German friendship.