Former German foreign minister Joschka Fischer was pessimistic about the current state of affairs at the meeting, entitled 'A United States of Europe'. He acknowledged that "the EU's 'no-bailout' clause was quickly forgotten" in the face of Greek difficulties last year, and that "eurobonds are there, just in a different shape," but was critical of France and Germany's reluctance to move forward with further integration.
"Despite all the kisses [between French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel], France and Germany are going through a difficult period," he said.
"One thing is clear, 400 years of trans-Atlantic hegemony are coming to an end. It's almost amusing to see how Europeans worry about a sovereignty loss [to the EU] as day by day, we lose it to emerging powers," he said.
"It is no longer Uncle Sam ... but the Chinese old uncles from Southeast Asia" who are stepping in to help Europe with sovereign bond purchases.
"We need to hand over some budget prerogatives to the EU ... we need similar pension ages ... we are going to have to draw all the threads together ... [and] future integration steps need a political Europe," he said.