Concerned American politicians push European leaders for action
AMERICAN President Barack Obama has urged Europe’s leaders to push forward with reforms to ease the ongoing debt crisis.
“In the end the big countries in Europe … must meet and take a decision on how to coordinate monetary integration with more effective co-ordinated fiscal policy,” Obama told Spanish reporters.
The President’s treasury secretary, Tim Geithner, will meet with Eurozone ministers on Friday in a bid to push through the enhanced European bailout fund.
“He will probably tell Germany to give up its resistance to an increase in the size of the European Financial Stability Facility,” one EU official said. A US official last night denied that Geithner would push for an increase in the fund’s size.
Back across the pond, Obama’s latest fiscal stimulus plan drew bitter attacks from Republicans.
“What the President’s proposed so far is not serious. And it’s not a jobs plan,” Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said in a speech on the Senate floor.
“I just don’t think that is really going to help our economy the way it should,” added GOP House of Representatives speaker John Boehner.