During the visit to Berlin German Chancellor Angela Merkel and  French President Emmanuel Macron agreed to draw a roadmap to deeper European Union integration and opened the door to changing the EU27 treaties to facilitate ambitious reforms.

A day after Macron’s inauguration, the two leaders gave press-conference in Berlin after talks in which they sought to reinvigorate the Franco-German relationship and the European project that has been damaged by Brexit.

Merkel said that Germany needs France to succeed, underlining that “Europe will only do well if there is a strong France”.

“We agreed that we want to develop a road map for the European Union’s medium-term perspectives,” she said in a joint news conference with Macron.

“There is a common conviction that we cannot only deal with Britain’s exit (from the EU), but instead that we must above all think about how we can deepen the existing European Union and especially the euro zone.”