France, Germany propose full-time euro chief

French President Francois Hollande said Thursday he and German Chancellor Angela Merkel have decided to push for a full-time chief to oversee the eurozone's economic policy.

"On the organization of economic governance, we are both in agreement that there should be more eurozone summits with a full-time Eurogroup president with reinforced powers who could also be given the mandate, by eurozone ministers, to push for action on employment in industry and research," Hollande said at a joint press conference with Merkel.

They met in Paris on Thursday afternoon, trying to map out a new joint plan to fight unemployment and strengthen competitiveness in Europe.

Their discussion came one day after the European Commission made the decision to give France more time to trim its budget deficit but urged Hollande to step up reform, rein in public spending, renew pension system and improve competitiveness.

French President Francois Hollande (R) and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel attend a joint press conference at the presidential Elysee Palace, in Paris, France, May 30, 2013. (Xinhua/Tang Ji)

Plagued by economic woes and record high unemployment rate, France's economy has slid into recession. So far, no effective answers are found to its economic and fiscal problems.

"Economically, Europe is stagnated ... growth is feeble or zero in many countries and even some others slid into recession... The challenge is to bring more growth to Europe," Hollande said.

"What France and Germany want to show is not to dictate our points of view to others, but given our responsibilities, to lead all the Europeans to the ways of coherence and solidarity that we considered the best (to reach goals)," the French president said.

After rifts over how the European Union (EU) should fix the financial and economic troubles clouded Paris-Berlin links, the two leaders of Europe's main powerhouses came out, after Paris talks, with common proposals to stimulate growth and create enough jobs for 7.5 million unemployed European young people.

Both have urged a swift mobilization of the 6-billion-euro (7.8-billion-U.S. dollar) fund to stimulate job creation and invest more to improve competitiveness and encourage medium and small companies to hire poorly skilled young workers.

"We hope that the growth pact will be quickly operational... There is a need to act rapidly to improve competitiveness and create jobs," Merkel said.