BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel may not have a “bosom friendship” with her French counterpart, she said on Thursday, but her working relationship with Francois Hollande was strong and crucial for Europe.

With her foreign minister saying Germany must not act with “Teutonic arrogance” towards its euro zone neighbors, Merkel played down criticism she has received from France’s ruling Socialists.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble signaled a softening of his stance on a European banking union on Tuesday, saying the euro zone should press ahead on the basis of current law without waiting for a controversial overhaul of the EU’s Lisbon treaty.

The banking union is a crucial part of Europe’s drive to overcome its financial and sovereign debt crisis. In a first step, it involves the creation of a Europe-wide banking supervisor under the hood of the European Central Bank. This is to be followed by a so-called resolution scheme to close or salvage struggling banks.

BERLIN, May 7 (Reuters) – German Finance Minister Wolfgang
Schaeuble signalled a softening of his stance on a European
banking union on Tuesday, saying the euro zone should press
ahead on the basis of current law without waiting for a
controversial overhaul of the EU’s Lisbon treaty.

The banking union is a crucial part of Europe’s drive to
overcome its financial and sovereign debt crisis. In a first
step, it involves the creation of a Europe-wide banking
supervisor under the hood of the European Central Bank. This is
to be followed by a so-called resolution scheme to close or
salvage struggling banks.

ROME/BERLIN, April 30 (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister
Enrico Letta, fresh from winning a confidence vote in
parliament, told Germany on Tuesday his government would meet
its budget commitments but expected Europe to drop its austerity
mantra and do more to lift growth.

Speaking in Berlin on his first foreign visit since taking
office on Sunday, Letta warned that Italy’s February election,
which saw a surge of support for parties attacking the European
Union, showed that a change of course was needed.

ROME/BERLIN (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Enrico Letta, fresh from winning a confidence vote in parliament, told Germany on Tuesday his government would meet its budget commitments but expected Europe to drop its austerity mantra and do more to lift growth.

Speaking in Berlin on his first foreign visit since taking office on Sunday, Letta warned that Italy’s February election, which saw a surge of support for parties attacking the European Union, showed that a change of course was needed.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s government expects the Constitutional Court to confirm an earlier ruling backing a euro zone rescue mechanism and EU officials said the European Central Bank’s plans to buy bonds of stricken states was outside its remit.

The Bundesbank, a stern opponent of ECB plans to purchase debt of struggling euro zone members, sent a 29-page report to the court in December, which was published in a German newspaper on Friday, outlining the dangers of the plan.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s opposition Social Democrats (SPD) do not believe the time for debt and deficit reduction in Europe is over yet, but see a need to focus more on growth to combat unemployment in southern Europe, a top SPD politician told Reuters.

As Europe debates whether it can stand more of the austerity led by Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom the SPD aims to oust in an election in September, Frank-Walter Steinmeier said he did not think the European Commission was ready to call the dogs off.

BERLIN, April 16 (Reuters) – Qatar on Tuesday rejected
criticism that it risked destabilising the Middle East by
supporting rebels in Syria or the Muslim Brotherhood and said it
was helping people but did not interfere in governments.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has accused Arab states who
are arming and sheltering rebel fighters of actions that could
“create a domino effect throughout the Middle East and beyond”,
with Saudi Arabia and Qatar clearly in mind.

AUGSBURG, Germany, April 14 (Reuters) – Germany’s opposition
Social Democrats (SPD) opened their election campaign on Sunday
pledging victory in September despite polls that suggest their
best hope of regaining power will be in a “grand coalition”
under Angela Merkel.

Opinion polls have put Peer Steinbrueck’s centre-left SPD
well behind Merkel’s conservatives, and her personal popularity
has soared to more than 60 percent while fewer than a third of
Germans say they would prefer him as chancellor.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel will host David Cameron and his wife and children at a castle outside Berlin at the weekend in a rare family get-together that she may hope will create the right mood to heal a growing rift between Britain and Europe.

Cameron, who warned this week that British support for the EU was “wafer thin”, will spend the weekend with Merkel and her husband Joachim Sauer at Schloss Meseburg northwest of Berlin accompanied by his wife Samantha and their three children.