and foreseeable. I have also made this clear again and again in my conversations with President Netanyahou. We also discussed trade measures against Israel. I rejected these proposals on behalf of the Federal Government. To conclude, we have held intensive discussions in two major international formats this week, both in the G7 and in the European Council. I have just now once again thanked President Macron for his very successful presidency of the G7 format, which allowed us to issue a comprehensive leaders' statement this week in such a good and harmonious manner. That is largely his merit, but also the result of good coordination on the European side. The members of the European Union represented in the G7 — France, Italy and Germany — have been very well coordinated from the beginning. We also discussed this well in advance together with Great Britain, and I assume that we will continue this cooperation in the coming weeks and months. We will of course also speak with Poland again and again whenever it comes to Ukraine. I want to emphasize this in any case: there is no format and no conversation I hold without also informing the smaller and medium-sized member states of the European Union at the same time, especially when they are directly affected regionally themselves, such as the neighboring states in Eastern Europe. In this respect, I believe we have shown that we as Europeans are capable of acting, both in the large G7 format and in the large round of heads of state and government of the European Union. I travel home this week after intensive consultations with the feeling that international cooperation is working well, both in Europe and in the G7 format, and that is the prerequisite for us to make our contribution to nothing more and nothing less than peace in the world. Many thanks, Mr. Fischer, please.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chancellor. It seems there is greater disagreement about who should sit at the negotiating table for the Europeans when talks between Ukraine and Russia come about. Do you still see enough support in the EU for the E3 to continue the diplomatic process, and does the E3 actually have its own communication channels to Russia, at whatever level, or is there total radio silence at the moment? Please excuse us for not informing the public about the details of our consultations, but two things are important to me. First, this E3 format came about at the express wish of Ukraine, and it also has a certain internal logic, namely that Great Britain, Germany and France are working closely together here. These are large states in Europe. They are also the ones that contribute to a considerable extent to the military support of Ukraine, with Germany now by far the number one. As I said, it was the express wish of Ukraine that these three countries play a role here, including in coordination. That is what we are doing. Great Britain, as a country that no longer belongs to the European Union, must still be there. It is an important NATO member in the European Union. And we are not only talking about Ukraine; we are also talking together about important questions now in preparation for the NATO summit in Ankara in a few days. In this respect, these are important discussion formats. We always include, of course, Italy, we always include, of course, Poland and other member states of the European Union. That is a matter of course for us. Who speaks for the European Union, we do not have to decide today. We will decide that when talks take place. It is of course clear that the Council President, Antonio Costa, the President of the European Council, has an important role to play here. He represents the European Union. He ensures that we hold good discussions within the European Union, that we go into the Council meetings well organized and well prepared in the European Council, and in this respect we do not need to make any further decisions at the moment.
Mr. Rinke. Yes, thank you. Mr. Chancellor, could you please specify a little which instruments you want from the European Commission? Are these also instruments against currency manipulation, which you have now been talking about? And a supplementary question. The USA has launched an investigation against Germany because of pharmaceutical prices. Are you concerned that the tariff agreement with the USA is now void again, because possibly higher tariffs on pharmaceutical products are coming? No, I assume that the United States of America will stick to the agreement we have. As far as the reimbursement of modern, innovative medicines by our health insurance funds is concerned, that is a decision that falls within our national competence. If America wants information about it, we will of course be happy to provide it. But that is a question of our reimbursement system within the statutory framework of health insurance. And in this respect, it is a purely domestic matter that we will have to discuss here if necessary. The question of how we proceed further in the formats is a question I have just explained. I think we have really found a good rhythm now in how we conduct the talks, and that we are all trying to end the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible — that is, I believe, clear to all of us. Please, this is about trade... Oh, you wanted... You wanted that... Good. Yes. Yes. I'm sorry, I misunderstood that. So, which instruments are available to us, the Commission is now to prepare that for the next Council. I have already raised the topic of currency relations or exchange rates in the G7 format. By the way, also with great approval from the American side, because America is affected by this just as much as we are. We compete in some cases with currency areas that have currencies depreciated by up to 30%, undervalued currencies compared to us. Undervalued is the right expression. And I recalled that there were such distortions between trading areas in earlier decades as well. There were then sensible discussion formats for how to deal with such questions in the end. An agreement was once reached at the Plaza Hotel in New York. There was once an agreement in Paris, even before we had the currency union in the European framework, before we had the EU monetary union. There was the European Monetary System at the time, which was also a system where people agreed on corridors for exchange rates. Something like that is what I have in mind now. We do not want to make mutual accusations here, but we want to try to balance out these imbalances. And these are imbalances that do not only come at the expense of trading partners; they also come at the expense of domestic demand and purchasing power at home. So basically, nobody can have an interest in having such currency burdens over the long term, such shifts also in the context of the real purchasing power of the individual currency. And in this respect, discussions are called for, but we must also conduct them in our own interest. Mr. Gutschker, please.
Thomas Gutschker, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Mr. Chancellor, first a follow-up question on the possible negotiations with Russia. You said that first we have to agree on the substance, then we clarify the formats. Where do you still not agree on the substance as the E3 and with Ukraine? Which questions still need to be clarified there? And secondly, enlargement. You said the debate actually only comes in October. But you have already submitted your considerations, and they have probably been presented in the room. On your proposal of an associated membership for Ukraine. There is a lot of criticism from the member states. The arguments are that Ukraine must not be favored over the Western Balkans, and that it is legally not feasible to introduce an observer status. Is the proposal basically dead now, before you can really discuss it? First of all, to agree on the substance means to agree with Russia that we are now negotiating, and that is the prerequisite for us to define who negotiates. And primarily, Ukraine decides that. Ukraine is the affected country, and Ukraine ultimately decides who stands on its side and conducts negotiations. The European Union is not a neutral third party here and is not a mediator, but is a party on Ukraine's side. And then Ukraine also decides who negotiates for it and with it. So to agree on the substance with Russia that negotiations will be held — we are not there yet. And I repeat, it is solely up to Russia to make the decision to enter into negotiations now. As far as the enlargement process is concerned, we did not discuss it extensively yesterday and today for reasons of time. That was purely due to the time constraints, because the agenda was already very full and because some parts took very long. We submitted two papers. First of all, I made the proposal regarding the associated membership of Ukraine, and in my letter to the Commission President and to the Council President, I also included the Western Balkans. I then submitted a so-called non-paper with Emmanuel Macron, where we specified it once more and went into greater depth. The associated membership works without a treaty change, and we have precedents for it. I want to recall once again — this also stood in my mind a bit — when in 1990, one year after the previous European election, with German reunification, we had taken a territory into the European Union that was not yet represented in the institutions at the time. We introduced an observer status for the then still existing GDR and then subsequently for the East German federal states in the European Parliament. At that time, 18 observers without voting rights from East Germany entered the European Parliament. That worked without a treaty change, and that is why something like what I have now proposed also works without a treaty change. My proposal was also aimed precisely at enabling something that works without a treaty change. Everything else is an illusion. We will not get treaty changes in Europe at the present time. And of course, all of this must be coordinated with the process around the Western Balkans. I do not want different speeds here. There are different circumstances, there are different progress reports, there are different restrictions. A country like Ukraine at war cannot become a member of the European Union, but it could become an associated member of the European Union and then later a full member of the European Union. With the Western Balkans, it is different. We have been negotiating with these states for almost 20 years about membership in the European Union. At least one of the countries, namely Montenegro, is practically ready for accession. The clusters have been largely completed. The country could now enter the final process, so to speak. There is the question: all at once or one after another? There are good reasons to say all at once. But there are also good reasons to say one after another. We will talk about this at the next European Council. And this is anything but off the table. On the contrary, the proposals are on the table, and there is a large number of colleagues who are grateful that they are out of the frustration of last year, which we had when we held the last Western Balkans summit here in Brussels and nobody really knew what we were supposed to do now with the Western Balkan states, how we were supposed to move forward. And the attempt by Emmanuel Macron and me is simply to get out of this loop and now make a proposal on how we can move forward with this topic. I always say this at the table: sitting at the top is the Prime Minister from Croatia, Andrej Plenković. That is the last country that joined the European Union 13 years ago, and Andrej Plenković is now the longest-serving Prime Minister sitting at that table. So you can see from this example how long ago it was and how overdue it is that we now talk about enlargement, especially for the countries that are actually ready to join. Mr. Fechner, please.
Thank you very, very much. Fechner News Agency DTS. Mr. Chancellor, the topic of cutting bureaucracy — you only touched on it very superficially just now. Overall, we haven't heard much concrete about it. Do you still believe that you will achieve concrete implementations at the EU this year, as you had planned, such as the fiction of approval? And which countries are actually the brake-pedals? I did not touch on it superficially at all, but I just said it very clearly in my short opening statement. This is one of the main topics that we have been dealing with, and have been dealing with again now. The Commission now presents a progress report to every European Council. The Commission allows us to talk about follow-up measures every time. How do we move forward faster? We also talked once again — I didn't mention this just now, but I'll make up for it — we talked again about the 28th regime, the simple legal form available throughout Europe for startup and scale-up companies, which should allow a company to be founded for all of Europe within 24 hours. This idea is still right. We want to push it forward, and we agree that we want to make this possible by the end of the year. So it also played a major role in the Council today and yesterday that we really want to continue working on this topic together with determination. Of course there is resistance, of course there are always brake-pedals, but it is exactly our task to overcome that and to ensure that we now implement what Enrico Letta and Mario Draghi told us, what we discussed very intensively together on February 12th. Mr. Delfs, please, also to the screen. Mr. Chancellor, also again on the topic of China. This is also a balancing act for you. On the one hand, you naturally want to avoid an open trade war. At the same time, there is very great trade pressure, pressure to act, to do something, because the numbers have developed very dramatically in terms of the trade imbalance. How do you want to avoid the Chinese feeling provoked by the measures being discussed and reacting now already? And could you briefly explain what exactly you meant by this exchange rate corridor? Yes, who is discussing with whom. First of all, we talked in general about economic imbalances. We respect and acknowledge when there are countries that, for example, spend a lot on research and development, and that thereby also advance technologically very quickly. We fully accept when productivity in these countries is higher than in Europe. That is a competition for us that we have to face, without ifs and buts, and there is nothing to criticize about that. If others are better than us, then we have to make an effort to become good again. But when it comes to high subsidies in entire industries that thereby flood markets, when we see that individual countries have 13 or 14 percent of world demand and at the same time over 30 percent of industrial production, when there is systematic subsidization into overcapacities. And when all of this is accompanied by a currency that is not freely convertible, that ultimately does not participate in the capital market because the capital market is sealed off for itself, then these are competitive distortions that we simply do not want to accept. One must also speak openly about this. I do so during my visits to the countries with which we conduct intensive trade; I also raise these topics openly, and I expect that this will be accepted in return, that we talk about these topics. And when it comes to these monetary policy questions, I want to recall the EWS system that we once established in Europe, in order, for example, to prevent economic policy from being made through exchange rates. Whether that is the right example or the right format remains to be seen. I only want to say that we have had experience on the European side and on the transatlantic side with such dialogue formats on exchange rates, and they are essentially good experiences. We have to talk to each other about this topic, and I think it is in both sides' interest to do so, because an artificially low currency also impairs purchasing power in one's own country. It is therefore not only advantageous for those who want to improve their external competitive positions through it, and in this respect it is a dialogue that we must conduct. And once again, this is a dialogue in mutual interest. Mr. Disteldorf, last question, we have to go then. Yes, thank you very much, Jan Disteldorf, Süddeutsche Zeitung. Mr. Chancellor, the first question on the MFF, very briefly. What do you mean by significantly? Can you give an order of magnitude when you say the numbers must come down? By how much, so how much are we talking about? Second question on the MFF after the consultations you held today. What will you throw into the balance in the coming months to achieve the goal of finishing this year? How much better can you estimate this now? As for the year 2026, I cannot estimate that. I can only say from my side, and I have already discussed this in the cabinet. We will discuss this again, and I will also do so in close coordination with the federal cabinet, especially with the finance minister. We want to reach a conclusion in 2026, simply to have planning security, for example for the cohesion and agricultural funds also for the years from 2028. Those who benefit from them must have planning security from 2028 that these funds will continue to exist, albeit in a changed scope. But the funds will not be completely cut; there will be changes. But knowing these changes in good time is important for all those involved. To what extent we will reduce, I don't want to predict that at the moment at all. That depends crucially on what the individual weighting will be. We basically now have three pillars. There will be the common agricultural policy and the cohesion policy combined into the regional partnership programs. Then there will be competitiveness and the associated fund, and then there will be the funds for foreign policy and trade policy. And the weighting of these three pillars relative to each other is just as unresolved as the question of how the European Union actually finances its revenue. The Commission has also made proposals for a new own-resources regime. We also have to carry out an appropriate feedback with the member states individually, because there are own resources that are partly already booked in the national budgets through their own tax revenues. So a whole range of highly complex questions is coming our way. And in this respect, I don't want to commit myself, and I can't commit myself now either. I'll just say that the Commission's proposal, and even more so the European Parliament's proposal, to go to a figure of 1.6 or even 1.7 trillion euros for the next 7 years, is a proposal that in my view is not feasible, and it is also not financeable. I just told the colleagues again what that would mean for the European contribution — not the net contribution, which is irrelevant in this context — but what it would mean for the European payment contribution to the budget of the European Union. This proposal that we now have from the Commission and from the Council is a proposal that would trigger at least 15, rather 20 billion euros in higher contributions per year to the European budget, and that, given our budget situation at the moment, is not feasible, and not feasible for a long time. I believe that becomes clear to everyone when they simply hear the numbers, and that is why I presented these numbers in the Council. By the way, not for the first time. I did it shortly before Christmas last year. I simply told the colleagues: you have to know what is possible and what is not, and this is not possible. So, thank you very much. Have a good trip home. Have a nice weekend. Until next time. C.
