BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel issued a veiled reprimand on Thursday to Britain and France for threatening to veto a deal on the European Union’s long-term budget, saying such talk did not help the tense negotiations.

Merkel said it was normal in politics to “stake out terrain” ahead of a summit such as the November 22-23 meeting of EU leaders to discuss the bloc’s 1 trillion euro ($1.3 trillion) spending plan.

BERLIN (Reuters) – German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered Ireland’s leader no clear signal on Thursday on easing the country’s banking debt burden beyond reiterating that she sees it as a “special case”.

Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny had played down hopes of a breakthrough during his visit to Berlin on the 1-1/2-year-old campaign to relieve the burden placed on Ireland by its failed banks. He said in a video on a government website that his meeting with Merkel was “not about making a decision”.

BERLIN, Oct 30 (Reuters) – French Finance Minister Pierre
Moscovici urged the euro zone on Tuesday to take a first step to
mutualise its short-term debt, stopping short of jointly-issued
“Eurobonds” which he recognised German Chancellor Angela
Merkel’s government flatly rejects.

“We are not talking any more about Eurobonds. I know it is a
red line here in Germany, for some, the present government among
them,” Moscovici said at a conference alongside his German
counterpart, Wolfgang Schaeuble.

BERLIN (Reuters) – European Central Bank President Mario Draghi gave a robust defense of his bond-buying plan to ease the euro zone’s debt crisis, telling skeptical German lawmakers that fears of illegal funding of governments or stoking inflation are misplaced.

Draghi emerged from the lion’s den of the Bundestag lower house smiling after a two-hour grilling behind closed doors on Wednesday on the ECB’s Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) program, which the German central bank has denounced as tantamount to printing money to finance governments.

BERLIN, Oct 23 (Reuters) – Britain’s foreign secretary told
Germany on Tuesday his country was more disillusioned than ever
with the European Union and set out a vision of its future,
based on the premise “less is more”, that clashed directly with
Berlin’s plans for the euro zone.

William Hague dashed any hope of a conciliatory message to a
key European partner which fears Britain is gradually
withdrawing from the EU, saying Britons feel the Union “is a
great machine that sucks up decision-making”.

BERLIN, Oct 22 (Reuters) – Until recently, German officials
tended to down play divisions with Britain when pressed about
its semi-detached stance on Europe. Not any more. Now they tend
to make their irritation plain.

“If someone wants to leave, you can’t stop them,” said one
senior German official, summing up a view in Berlin that the
door is open if Britain really wants to quit the European Union.

BERLIN (Reuters) – Germany’s Angela Merkel called ahead of an EU summit for stronger central powers to intervene when member states break budget rules and rebuffed demands from Berlin’s partners for the quick creation of a pan-European bank supervisor.

In a speech to the lower house of parliament hours before EU leaders meet, the chancellor put herself on a collision course with French Socialist President Francois Hollande and others, who are reluctant to cede sovereignty over fiscal policy and want the ECB to get new watchdog powers by year-end.

LONDON/BERLIN, Oct 17 (Reuters) – Germany sold 4.2 billion
euros of two-year debt on Wednesday, drawing strong demand for
its safe-haven bonds as a rise in yields above zero offset the
impact of Spain retaining its investment grade credit rating.

Moody’s Investors Service kept Spain’s rating at Baa3,
surprising some in the market who had positioned for the country
at the forefront of the euro zone debt crisis to be downgraded
to “junk”.

BERLIN, Oct 12 (Reuters) – Mexican President-elect Enrique
Pena Nieto tried on Friday to drum up German interest in his
plans to open up national oil company Pemex to the private
sector, but faced questions from potential investors about drug
violence in his country.

Pena Nieto, who takes office Dec. 1, laid out his plans to
deregulate Mexico’s labour market and change the law to allow
private investment in Pemex at a meeting in Berlin
organised by Deutsche Bank, Germany’s biggest bank.

BERLIN, Oct 11 (Reuters) – Mexican President-elect Enrique
Pena Nieto sought advice on Thursday on how to develop his
country’s renewable energy sector from Germany, a world pioneer
in the sector.

Pena Nieto, who takes office in December, kicked off a tour
of European capitals by discussing clean energy production, the
euro zone crisis and other issues with Chancellor Angela Merkel.