French President Nicolas Sarkozy said this afternoon that Paris and Berlin want to see the introduction of a "reinforced and harmonised Golden Rule" on the deficits of eurozone states.
After meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Sarkozy said the goal would be for "national constitutional courts to verify that national budgets are returning to balance".
He said that France and Germany want automatic sanctions against EU member states whose deficits go over three percent of their gross domestic product.
"We want immediate sanctions in the event of non-respect for the rule keeping deficits below three percent" of GDP, Sarkozy said.