German finance minister calls for directly elected EU president

GERMAN FINANCE minister Wolfgang Schäuble has called for a directly elected European Union president to further European integration and improve the bloc’s democratic legitimacy.

In Aachen, after receiving the Charlemagne Prize for his contribution to European integration, Mr Schäuble warned of a weakening link between European citizens and Brussels institutions. “The political unity of Europe needs a face, a face that represents a legitimate power,” said Mr Schäuble. “This would then be the political pinnacle of a European executive.” Though not the first time he has made such a call, Mr Schäuble’s Aachen message had an urgent resonance given continued uncertainty over Greece and the who’s who of Europe listening in the audience.

The 69-year-old politician said the lesson of the financial crisis was the need for greater pooling of economic and financial responsibility – with a parallel debate over which tasks are best left at local and national level.

He said agreement on an elected European president should be reached before the next European parliamentary elections.

“Parties could enter a top candidate that, in the event of an electoral victory, could then be accepted by the leaders of the national governments as the commission president,” he said.

The European Commission needed to be reduced in size, he said, and should stop producing detailed regulation that led to greater bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the European Parliament, he said, should finally be given the right to initiate legislation that is enjoyed by national parliaments.

Mr Schäuble said the institutional changes he proposed should be agreed within the next five years, by which time the fiscal treaty would be integrated into European law. Defending the inter-governmental treaty, he said: “Better to move forward in small pragmatic steps then to stand still, walled in by principle.”

In his laudatio Luxembourg’s prime minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, honoured Mr Schäuble as a “German patriot and European patriot” – a key player at every stage of recent EU integration – from the Maastricht Treaty to the euro. Christine Lagarde, Mr Schäuble’s one-time French counterpart and now IMF head, described him as “the wisest of German wise men” and a man of “great duty, loyalty, nobility, humility”.

Aachen’s Charlemagne prize, named after the eighth century emperor Charles the Great, has been awarded since 1950 to public figures who have served the cause of European integration.