"It's a grave mistake," Roesler told Welt am Sonntag newspaper on Sunday.

He said China already warned the duties on solar panels would harm bilateral trade. "That shows: punitive import duties are the wrong instrument."

Roesler told the Sunday newspaper that the German government has repeatedly warned of the consequences of punitive import duties against China's solar industry. Germany is one of the world's leading export nations.

It is absolutely right to seek to protect areas where there is drinking and ground water, like at Lake Constance. At an EU level the topic of fracking and environmental protection will be looked at more closely this year," Die Welt quoted Oettinger as saying in an article published in its online edition on Monday.

Fracking involves pumping water, sand and chemicals at high pressure to open up the shale and release the gas. Critics say fracking could increase seismic risks and pollute drinking water.

"We take note with satisfaction the French position," Bonino told a news conference. She added Hollande's proposal "must be taken into consideration and must be explored."

Hollande called on Thursday for an economic government for the eurozone with its own budget, the right to borrow, a harmonised tax system and a full-time president.

The move to create the European Business Alliance for TTIP follows a similar action taken in April by American corporations, which launched the US Business Coalition for Transatlantic Trade.

Talks are expected to start as early as June and stakeholders are pressing for a quick resolution, even though it could take more than two years to sort out the differences in the world's largest trading relationship.

With her foreign minister saying Germany must not act with "Teutonic arrogance" towards its eurozone neighbours, Merkel played down criticism she has received from France's ruling Socialists.

"Living in an open society we must have nuances between conflict and bosom friendship. It seems there is nothing between the two - but the reality is different," Merkel told a conference on Europe in Berlin on Thursday (16 May).

Problems regarding the affordability of medicines in Europe and the long-term sustainability of public expenditure on medicines precede the crisis in the EU.

At a Parliament event on Thursday (16 May), Spanish MEP Alejandro Cercas (Socialists and Democrats) said citizens especially in the EU's poorest countries no longer can afford their medicines.

"It's unacceptable that millions can't afford the best lifesaving treatment in the EU. More fiscal solidarity has not lead to more general solidarity. We are putting the EU at risk," Cercas stated.

Irish MEP Nessa Childers (Socialists and Democrats) said she's personally very interested in the idea of putting pressure onto actually reviewing the alcohol strategy.

"We don’t have enough commitment yet, so we need the strategy to be reviewed and we all need to take responsibility for doing that," Childers said Wednesday (15 May) at a Parliament event as part of Awareness Week on Alcohol-Related Harm (AWARH).

Germany, with the EU's biggest and most powerful economy, was the last member state to ratify the accession treaty as it had waited for the final European Commission report on Croatia's readiness to join. That report, issued in March, was positive.

"Croatia's entry shows that the EU's attraction continues unbroken. Europe is not just about crisis. The European perspective is what drives reforms in our neighbourhood," Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle told the Bundestag.

Speaking at the European Business Summit, EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard called for “clever regulation” to drive innovation and for a liberalised EU energy market to lower prices, saying renationalisation would be more costly than European-wide climate policies.

“We need efficient and also cost-efficient energy systems. We need to liberalise the energy market, a Europeanised market. It is wrong that renationalisation will be cheaper. Of course you cannot have climate policies that cost nothing,” she said.