German Chancellor Angela Merkel reached out to the ex-communist east as she pushes plans for a more competitive Europe, saying the euro area won’t become a “closed club.”
Merkel’s comment, which signaled her aim to ally with EU nations she views as sharing German values of fiscal discipline, followed a meeting in Warsaw today with French President Francois Hollande, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk and their peers from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.