GERMAN chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Francois Hollande today staged a desperate bid to prevent “the end of Europe” at the European Parliament.
In a historic joint visit, the two leaders made an urgent attempt to prevent the European Union (EU) unravelling amid a faltering eurozone, conflict in Ukraine, the unprecedented migrant crisis on the continent and Britain’s possible exit from the bloc.
Mrs Merkel warned MEPs that Europe faces a “test of historic dimensions” while Mr Hollande claimed political union between the EU’s 28 member states could fall apart in the face of its current troubles.
He said: “The debate is not about less Europe or more Europe.
“It is about the affirmation of Europe or the end of Europe. Yes, the end of Europe.”
In a sign of the growing anxiety of both politicians, it was the first such joint address in Strasbourg by German and French leaders since 1989 – when Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterand visited days after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Mrs Merkel said: “It is precisely now that we need more Europe.
“If we overcome that, we will be stronger after the crisis than before.”
King Felipe VI of Spain also tried to halt a rising tide of euroscepticism across the EU as he used his own address to claim “there is no alternative to a united Europe”.
The monarch spoke as his own country faces breaking apart due to a rising independence movement in Catalonia.
However, as European Parliament president Martin Schulz hailed a “historic visit for historically difficult times”, eurosceptic MEPs blasted Mrs Merkel and Mr Hollande’s joint call for “more Europe”.
UKIP leader Nigel Farage told the pair what they were actually calling for was “more of the same failing”.
Blasting a “totally German-orientated Europe”, the co-chair of the Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy group of MEPs mocked France’s voice as “little more than a pipsqueak” in its relationship with Germany.
Mr Farage told Mrs Merkel and Mr Hollande they were now presiding over a “corrupted” and “rotten” EU.
He told Mrs Merkel: “Germany has a currency that is undervalued by 20 per cent, a growing and massive trade surplus and most growth in the German economy since the collapse of 2008 has indeed been in exports to other eurozone countries such as your very big arms sales to countries like Greece.
“And when we have a general election that says a country like Greece wants to change direction, well I’m sorry but that must now be brushed aside because the Germans don’t want it.”
The UKIP leader also turned his fire on Mrs Merkel’s recent offer to accept an unlimited number of Syrian refugees into Germany.
He told the German chancellor it “must count as perhaps the worst piece of public policy seen in modern Europe for half a century when you compounded the already failing and flawed EU common asylum policy by saying to the whole world ‘please come to Europe'”.
He added: “We saw virtually a stampede and we learn that 80 per cent of those that are coming are not Syrian refugees.
“In fact what you’ve done is open the door to young, male economic migrants, many of whom behave in a rather aggressive manner quite the opposite you would ever expect to see from any refugee.
“When that failure is met by objections from countries like Hungary their opinions are crushed.”
Hailing the “bright star on the horizon” of Britain’s upcoming referendum on EU membership, Mr Farage added that he hoped a vote for ‘Brexit’ would “be the beginning of the end of a project that, however noble its original intentions, has gone rotten”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gtu6wkc068A
source:express.co.uk
STUDIO 3 NEWCASTLE AUSTRALIA 