Govt Hits Back Over German Flak Posted on December 12th
9:44am UK, Friday December 12, 2008
Reports of divisions between Britain and Germany over how to handle the recession are overblown, Foreign Secretary David Miliband has told Sky News.
Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel are working together on the EU fiscal stimulus package
His comments come after another German politician criticised Gordon Brown’s response to the economic downturn.
Steffen Kampeter, a member of German chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party, said the Government’s moves to raise public debt to deal with the recession represented a “complete failure of Labour policy”.
“After years of lecturing us on how we need to share in the gains of uncontrolled financial markets, the Labour politicians can’t now expect us to share in its losses,” he added.
But Mr Miliband, currently in Brussels, insisted suggestions the two countries are at loggerheads is wrong.
He told Sky News: “Mrs Merkel is working very closely with Gordon Brown.
“She’s signing up to a fiscal stimulus with Europe which is at the heart of the British plan.”
German journalist on country’s horror at UK debt
He described criticisms of British policy inside from her administration as “internal politics” or “tit for tat” before a “debate about the next stage” of the German economic policy.
Mr Kampeter is not the first senior figure within Mrs Merkel’s administration to criticise British policy.
German finance minister Peer Steinbruck derided the headline 2.5% cut in VAT announced by Chancellor Alistair Darling in the pre-Budget report, while warning that a generation of taxpayers would be saddled with the debt.
Mr Brown, who is currently with Ms Merkel at a summit of EU leaders in Brussels, dismissed Mr Steinbruck’s comments as a matter of “internal German politics”.
But Mr Kampeter said: “The tremendous amount of debt being offered by Britain shows a complete failure of Labour policy.
“In questioning the British government’s approach, Peer Steinbruck is exactly expressing the views of the German Grand Coalition.”
A fiscal stimulus package to get economies moving is being thrashed out at the EU summit. It involves everything from tax cuts to investment strategies.
British government sources dismissed the Kampeter statement.
A source told the Guardian: “Steffen Kampeter is a backbench MP. He is not a minister and has no executive position.”
And the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said Chancellor Merkel had made it clear that she supports the EU fiscal stimulus package.