Merkel, Cameron to meet amid tension over crisis

The German and British leaders were to meet on Friday amid tensions over efforts to resolve the eurozone debt crisis and the future of the European Union.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose country has Europe's biggest economy, has been a leading player in efforts to resolve the 17-nation eurozone's crisis that have often been criticized as too hesitant.

British Prime Minister David Cameron travels to Berlin as Merkel seeks support for changes to European Union treaties that are meant to strengthen the eurozone but would need all 27 EU members' approval — a potentially long and messy process.

Cameron said last week that "if the leaders of the eurozone want to save their currency then they — together with the institutions of the eurozone — must act now."

Britain is a member of the European Union but doesn't use the euro. Cameron's party is deeply sceptical about European integration.

Merkel insists that there's no single quick-fix solution to the crisis. She has rejected the idea of jointly backed "eurobonds" and suggestions that the European Central Bank should step in with massive bond purchases to reduce the lending costs of countries such as Italy.

Merkel also wants to introduce a tax on financial transactions in Europe — an idea that has wide political support in Germany but, with prospects of a wider global agreement thin, cuts little ice with Britain.<

A senior Merkel ally voiced frustration earlier this week.

"The British are not members of the currency union, but they are members in Europe — and they too bear responsibility for Europe succeeding," Volker Kauder, the parliamentary leader of her conservative bloc, said at a party conference.

"Only looking for their own advantage and not being prepared to put anything in themselves — that can't be a message that we let the British get away with," he added.

Merkel herself has sounded conciliatory, saying in a speech on Thursday that Cameron was right to focus on tackling Britain's debt when he took office last year.

She also has insisted that she doesn't want to see the 17-nation eurozone and the full 27-member EU grow apart in the crisis.
Merkel said that issue requires "a great deal of political sensitivity."

"We want a Europe with Britain, we want a Europe with a strong Poland of course," she said, referring to another large EU country outside the euro.

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