Macron and Merkel Meet, Pledging to Save European Unity<br />For her part, Ms. Merkel said last week that she had been ready in 2013 to contemplate a eurozone budget "with which to help countries who want to reform." "Here<br />we could add means to the funds we already have in order to temporarily help countries in this area," Ms. Merkel said at a business dinner in Düsseldorf.<br />By ALISON SMALEMAY 15, 2017<br />BERLIN — The new French president and the veteran German chancellor used their first engagement on Monday to declare their determination to salvage European unity now<br />that France has beaten back the immediate risk from radical populism, which threatened to undo the European Union itself.<br />If a French leader has the courage to speak of a common budget for the eurozone, then Germany should also have the courage "to think again about some firm positions in the currency<br />and be open to a Franco-German compromise in the currency union," Mr. Gabriel wrote in a paper published in Der Spiegel and said by his Foreign Ministry to be genuine.<br />Thomas Gomart wrote that A more balanced relationship between Germany<br />and France would help to put an end to Berlin’s reputation as a selfish European hegemon, reducing the anti-German sentiment that is rising across the Continent,<br />As has become tradition for a new leader in either France or Germany, the first trip abroad is to the other’s country,<br />and Chancellor Angela Merkel continued in the regal spirit of Emmanuel Macron’s inauguration as French president on Sunday, greeting her visitor with full military honors.<br />But each was scrupulously attentive to the other at what Ms. Merkel termed "a very critical moment for the European Union."<br />The chancellor did not rule out European Union treaty changes if that proved necessary to push medium-term overhauls.
