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Merkel makes the case for repatriation of powers

Anna Sonny, 16 August 2013

David Cameron’s hopes for a reformed relationship with the EU are looking more likely after German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the repatriation of powers from Brussels to national governments should be discussed.

In a German radio interview, Merkel said:

In Europe at the moment we have to take care to coordinate our competitiveness more closely, and for that we don’t have to do everything in Brussels. ‘More Europe’ cannot only mean transferring competences from national states to Europe, but you can also have ‘more Europe’ by coordinating national political actions more intensively and rigorously with others. So we discuss if we need even more competences for Europe. However, we can also consider whether we can give something back.”

This will certainly be regarded by some as a significant step for Cameron’s European policy, as they are Merkel’s first such comments (albeit it cautious ones) about the decentralisation of powers and seem to open up the way for Cameron’s plans to get a ‘better deal for Britain.’

The comments come ahead of the German election which is due to take place at the end of next month. Cameron will be hoping to get this discussion going around the time of Britain’s referendum on EU membership which would most likely take place in 2017, provided he gets re-elected. But Merkel has certainly put the possibility out there for now.

Earlier this week, the news came that France and Germany’s economies had performed better than was expected and had lifted the Eurozone out of recession – perhaps Merkel feels it is time to change the tired austerity record and focus on reform?

In June the Dutch government wrote a letter to the parliament and released a ‘subsidiarity review,’ a list of the powers it thinks the EU should and should not assume. The letter states that ‘the time of an ever closer union in every possible policy area is behind us.’ A direct unpicking of the phrase ‘ever closer union’ (which appears in the opening sentence of the preamble to the 1957 treaty of Rome) from one of the six founding members of the EEC shows that scepticism about the EU’s influence on national policy is crystallizing at its very own core.

Cameron will certainly feel that he has backing from the Netherlands and Germany in his quest for the repatriation of powers. But it is clear that Merkel has more control over when and how this will happen.

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