BERLIN, May 22 (Xinhua) -- German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble and French new Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire on Monday said here at a joint press meeting that both countries would pledge new efforts to strengthen eurozone.
The first meeting of the ministers came one week after German Chancellor Angela Merkel and new-elected French President Emmanuel Macron met in Berlin.
The two ministers agreed that Germany and France must play a decisive role in strengthening the European Union in such a challenging time.
They said they are setting up a working group to produce proposals for a planned bilateral summit in July on "deepening the euro zone integration".
In a joint press release, the two ministers said the French-German group would discuss and offer proposals on how to boost budget and economic policies convergence and boost investment project, which they said were needed to give impetus to the eurozone in terms of growth and employment.
Stressing the key role of France and Germany in reinforcing the European Union (EU), Le Maire and Schaeuble "agreed to contribute to restoring confidence in the European Union by focusing on concrete and ambitious projects with genuine European added value...to show that the EU can provide answers to the concerns of citizens amid growing globalization."
They stressed that "greater coordination and integration of economic policies is necessary in order to achieve real economic convergence."
In this context, they called for action to strengthen reforms of national policies, reduce high levels of public and private debts and encourage fiscal convergence.
Schaeuble said:"strengthening the monetary union is of utmost importance since France and Germany had a special role in the 19-member euro zone."
Among all the topics they talked about, Germany and France could either propose a joint corporate tax system of their own or concentrate on pushing ahead efforts for a harmonized assessment basis for corporate tax at the European Union level, Schaeuble added.
Le Maire said: "We've been talking for years about progress in integrating the eurozone, but things aren't advancing quickly enough or far enough. We are determined to get things moving faster and further."
In response to Britain's decision to exit the European Union, Le Maire said France and Germany are going to seize the opportunity Brexit brings, "We see in Brexit an opportunity for our financial companies to be more attractive than they were before."
