On the eve of the EU summit, Merz calls for the strengthening of Europe

2025-10-17 08:32:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

On the eve of the EU summit next week, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for Europe to more energetically fulfill its role as a "power for peace."

"Europe must use its opportunities more decisively and more unanimously and use its power to shape a better world," Merz urged in the government statement in the Bundestag on the summit. The peace agreement on Gaza showed that political action makes a difference. At the same time, Europe must also become stronger militarily, the Chancellor emphasized.

Merz: Russian assets should be used for the Ukrainian army

The heads of state and government of the EU member states will meet in Brussels next week on Thursday and Friday (October 23 - October 24, 2025) for their autumn summit. It is customary for government statements to be issued on the eve of such meetings. One of the Chancellor's central projects at this meeting will be the demand to use Russian assets frozen in the wave of sanctions. Merz also raised this issue at the Copenhagen summit in early October and now expects concrete decisions to be made in Brussels.

It intends for the Russian Central Bank's credit assets worth 140 billion euros to be used to arm Ukraine to strengthen its defensive war against an aggressive Russia.

Action plan against hybrid threats from Russia

The German government will respond to threats from Russia with an expanded action plan to protect against hybrid threats. The National Security Council will discuss this at its inaugural meeting in a few days, the chancellor said. He accused Russia of destabilizing Germany and Europe - with sabotage and assassinations, with cyberattacks and deliberate disinformation.

"End the delays with regulations"

At the EU summit, Merz will also insist on progress towards strengthening the competitiveness of the European Union economy. "Europe will become more productive if it changes fundamentally," he said. This means: "Ending the exaggerations of regulations, faster procedures, open markets, more innovation, more concrete actions instead of hesitation."

The leader of the Christian Democratic Party called on the EU Commission to present further concrete proposals for reducing bureaucracy. With the steps taken so far, which envisage relieving businesses of a burden of around eight million euros, the Commission is on the right track. "But this is not enough," said Merz. "We need a systematic verification of EU agreements."

Merz also stressed that this does not contradict the clear statement that the climate protection targets by 2045 and the intermediate targets by 2040 must be achieved. The Chancellor emphasized that there should be no doubt about this. This is an organic part of environmental and economic policy. "And this is achieved not with regulations or bans, but with open technologies, with innovation, with competitiveness, especially in technologies that make environmental protection possible."/DW