Harris’ comments came after the finance ministers of Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Poland met in Brussels, behind closed doors, earlier in the day to discuss how best to speed up Europe’s plans to take on Wall Street.
That’s a problem for the likes of Dublin, which has a direct stake in the plans to deepen the bloc’s financial markets. Most money managers in Europe do the bulk of their business in Ireland and Luxembourg, which oppose efforts to create a single EU watchdog for the biggest financiers across the bloc.
Monday’s E6 gathering was the second meeting of its kind, with another planned in March, amid growing frustration that the EU is moving too slowly to keep pace with the economic powerhouses of the U.S. and China.
The shock surrounding U.S. President Donald Trump’s pursuit of Greenland also convinced the EU’s most powerful countries to agree on political positions ahead of G7 meetings — especially when it comes to securing critical raw materials.
“What happened with Greenland served as a wake-up call,” Germany’s finance minister, Lars Klingbeil, told reporters ahead of the Eurogroup. “We’ll be transparent.” The goal is to agree on certain topics and present them to the rest of the EU, he added.
The next E6 meeting will focus on boosting the euro on the global stage and making defense investments more effective. Not everyone’s opposed. Some diplomats perceive E6 as little more than a political tactic to push the most reluctant countries to go ahead on controversial issues.