Macron visits Merkel in bid to salvage EU reform plans

BERLIN, Apr 19 (AFP): French President Emmanuel Macron headed to Berlin Thursday for talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel, hoping to breathe fresh life into his grand vision for EU reforms in the face of growing German resistance.

In a sign of the low expectations for a breakthrough, Merkel said the leaders' brief meeting would be "another building block" on the road to finding "common solutions" ahead of a European Union summit in June.

The pair were due to give press statements before holding talks at the Berlin Palace, a historic site undergoing extensive reconstruction-an apt setting for discussions on Macron's plans for a post-Brexit overhaul of the bloc. But the Frenchman's dreams of driving through the changes with Merkel by his side were dealt a blow this week when her own conservative CDU/CSU bloc raised objections to his flagship proposals for a common eurozone budget and an expansion of the EU's bailout fund.

Macron defended his bold ideas in a passionate speech to the European Parliament on Tuesday, describing eurozone reforms as "indispensable" to challenging the rise of authoritarianism and nationalism on the continent.

But observers doubted whether his lofty words changed any hearts and minds in Berlin. "Macron must feel like a suitor who tries and tries to woo his beloved, even singing under her balcony, but is fobbed off with platitudes," the Handelsblatt financial daily wrote.

Much of Berlin's resistance is rooted in deep-seated German wariness of any measures that could lead to debt pooling, or German taxpayer cash flowing to spendthrift neighbours.