Bruno Le Maire

Treasury and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek has met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on the sidelines of the G20 finance ministers and central bank governors' summit in Brazil.

"I met with Minister Mehmet Şimşek to discuss how Türkiye and the United States can work together to address crucial regional issues," Yellen wrote on the social media platform X.

France and Germany will discuss later this month how strict new EU fiscal and debt rules should be, to create a basis for a pan-European deal by the end of the year, the finance ministers of both countries said on Thursday.

Germany, France and Italy have said they would cooperate more closely on the procurement of raw materials as Europe seeks to reduce its reliance on imports from countries such as China.

"Better diversification of our raw material supply is economic security," German Economy Minister Robert Habeck said in a statement.

France will go ahead with structural reforms to overhaul its economy after credit ratings agency Fitch downgraded the country's debt worthiness, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire has told AFP.    

Fitch downgraded France's debt worthiness a notch to "AA-" from "AA" on April 28, claiming the country's "fiscal metrics are weaker than peers".    

Finance ministers of Germany, France, Italy, and Spain urged member states on Wednesday (28 April) to submit their recovery plans and pressed the European Commission to speed up the assessment of the investment and reform proposals. 

The significance of extending the fiscal flexibility given to European Union member-states so they have the space to help their economies recover was highlighted by Bruno Le Maire in an interview with the EU correspondents of several European top newspapers, including Kathimerini.

In 2020 France will undoubtedly experience its worst year of economic recession since the end of World War II. This was forecast today by Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire during a hearing in the French Senate's Committee on Economic Affairs.

G-7 finance ministers in the euro area will hold a conference call Wednesday to "coordinate their responses" to the impact of the coronavirus on the global economy, said French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.

"We will have that meeting by phone—because you need to avoid travelling too much - for the G7 to coordinate its response," Le Maire told France 2 television.

In the context of mutual concerns about the impact of the new coronavirus epidemic on the global economy, especially in Greece and France, the finance ministers of the two countries, Christos Staikouras and Bruno Le Maire, discussed the implementation of the agreement they recently signed in Paris for boosting investments in Athens on Tuesday.

Paris supports Athens' demand from its creditors for more fiscal space to provide further relief to taxpayers, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told his Greek counterpart Christos Staikouras in Athens on Tuesday, during a meeting largely dominated by talks on the economic impact of the new coronavirus.