Merkel Calls for Europe to Step Up to Global Challenges

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Thursday the European Union needed to develop a response to growing global political and economic pressures and that this would be the spirit of an EU summit this week, reported Reuters. 

"I am convinced that, firstly, the world is not waiting for us - neither for us in Germany, nor for us in Europe - and secondly, more than ever we need European answers to the pressing, big questions of our time," Merkel told Germany's Bundestag lower house of parliament.