The new President of the European Commission has received the support of the President of France. Thus, Francois Hollande spoke in support of the strategy and plans of Jean-Claude Juncker on further management of the eurozone and energy sector in particular.
“I listened yesterday to the speech of Jean-Claude Juncker, he proposes 300 billion for investments in the next 5 years, I think it agrees to what I have asked for”, Hollande said commenting on the speech of the new head of the European Commission. The French president spoke at the EU summit devoted to discussion who will become the next European Council President and EU's foreign affairs chief. Francois Hollande openly said that France pursues its own interests to form the ruling elite of the European Union as it needs to boost its influence on Europe’s economic progress.
At the same time, the reforms carried out by Hollande failed to stabilize the pace of recovery of major economic indicators. According to Insee, growth remains fragile affecting the labor market; unemployment is rising and is unlikely to fall in the nearest future. "There are still a number of brakes that mean growth will not take off," said Vladimir Passeron, the head of Insee's economic forecasting department. In its previous outlook for 2014, the statistics bureau said Europe’s second largest economy is to grow 0.7%, down from the government estimates of 1% growth.
