Luxembourg Prime Minister Luc Frieden said political instability in Germany, France and elsewhere is hampering the European Union’s agenda as the bloc seeks to boost competitiveness and prepare for a second Donald Trump presidency, Luxembourg Times reports.
Frieden said in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Brussels on Wednesday when asked about the fallout engulfing governments in Berlin and Paris:
“That is indeed complicated. There are very few – at least in the region I’m coming from – very few stable governments right now.”
The EU’s two largest economies have been caught in a state of uncertainty just as the 27-member bloc prepares for possible twin blows – a trade conflict and the withdrawal of USA aid to Ukraine with Trump in the White House.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz this week charted a path to snap elections in February after his tripartite coalition collapsed, while Emmanuel Macron in France is trying to break the deadlock in parliament after inconclusive snap elections in June. Last week, the French president appointed the country’s fourth prime minister in a year.
Luxembourg is sandwiched between the two. Frieden, who has led the Grand Duchy’s government for just over a year, also named Belgium, which itself is in the throes of coalition talks after June elections, among member states that lack a strong, elected majority. The uncertainty has weighed on EU measures to better compete with global rivals.
“I hope that once this will be clarified, in some of our neighboring states, that we will move on on the competitiveness agenda,” Frieden said.
The prime minister, speaking ahead of a series of meetings of European leaders in the Belgian capital, said the bloc needed to work with Trump and maintain a channel of communication with its biggest trading partner. At the same time, he called for an “ambitious sovereign European agenda.”
“We must tell the US what we want and we want to be sovereign on many issues,” Frieden said, citing the need to bolster European competitiveness, defense and industrial policy.
The prime minister reinforced the call for less regulation of financial services in the bloc and for progress in bringing together the fragmented financial infrastructure into a so-called capital markets union. On the latter, he backed efforts by all 27 members before turning to piecemeal co-operation.
Frieden led Luxembourg after a surprise return to politics after a period in the private sector, including as vice chairman of Deutsche Bank AG. He previously served as the country’s finance minister.
