France urged to respect stability pact rules[fr][de] 

"We must continue to keep government budget deficits down," said Commission President José Manuel Barroso, who, in an unusual move, attended the Eurogroup meeting on 11 February.  

German Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück reminded France of her commitment agreed in Berlin in April last year, declaring that "in particular the great member states should compel themselves to the commitment to reach the mid-term objectives at the latest in 2010."  

"When bigger countries do not follow the rules, that is very damaging for confidence in Europe," added Dutch Finance Minister Wouter Bos, calling for "more preventive sanctions" for those member states that fail to make an effort to meet stability pact rules. 

The Eurogroup ministers' call comes as French President Nicolas Sarkozy is asking his European partners to allow him more relaxed use of public money to relaunch the country's economy. He has promised to remedy the situation by cutting the deficit back to zero by 2012 instead.

Sarkozy has clearly indicated that he thinks the strong euro is damaging France's exports and also expressed his dissatisfaction over the European Central Bank's interest rate policy, arguing that higher interest rates are bad for France's economic growth.

On 10 February, he said that he wanted to put politics back into Europe to prevent it being abandoned to "automatic rules that leave no room for political decision and accountability," adding that "our currency is not a taboo subject". 

The euro-zone ministers meet monthly to coordinate their economies in an attempt to guarantee the stability of their shared currency. Stability is sought primarily by keeping individual countries' budget deficits and public debt low. The agreement is informal and there are few sanctions against those who do not respect it. Therefore, other euro-zone nations have no say over France's public spending provided that the deficit remains under the 3% GDP ceiling.