„And you can also do a lot of things through coordinating policy, at intergovernmental level, but it certainly makes sense to also have European competencies for certain situations, especially pandemics.“
She continued: „Ideally, we should always have had a uniform European approach to lockdowns, shutdowns and other measures.
„I believe that Europe needs more competencies in the area of health. This will probably also require changes to the treaties,“ Merkel said at an event organized by her center-right pan-EU political family, the European People‘s Party, which discussed potential EU reforms that could also come up as part of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
Each political group in the European parliament – the centre-left socialists, the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP), the liberals, greens etc, propose a lead candidate. In theory, the candidate from the group that comes top becomes the president.
But this system isn’t written into the treaties, and has only been used once in 2014 – it’s not clear whether it will survive. Member states don’t like it because it takes power away from them and gives it to the parliament, and they’re under no legal obligation to follow it.
He said that „much had changed“ since the 2007 Lisbon Treaty, pointing to the eurozone and migration crises and Brexit.
A treaty renegotiation would require unanimous consent from all EU member states. In the same interview, Kurz expressed scepticism over any cooperation between the centre-right European People‘s Party (EPP) — to which the OeVP belongs — and parties further to the right in the European Parliament.