Soros Met ECB's Coeure to Discuss Deeper Euro-Area Integration

(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire George Soros met one of the European Central Bank’s top decision makers late last year to discuss a matter he has long advocated: closer euro-zone integration.

A private meeting between Benoit Coeure and Soros Fund Management in Frankfurt on Nov. 14 focused “on euro-area deepening,” a calendar of the ECB Executive Board’s appointments showed on Friday. Coeure is responsible for the ECB’s international and European relations.

The 87-year-old Soros has said his Open Society Foundations are stepping up efforts to promote and protect democracy in the developed world. At the World Economic Forum last month in Davos, Switzerland, he said the European Union needs to be  “radically” reinvented in order to regain public support and prevent the rise of nationalism. He also reiterated his view that the EU should avoid creating a core Europe along the lines of the euro area.

A spokeswoman for the ECB said the participants exclusively discussed euro-area integration at a very high level.

To contact the reporter on this story: Carolynn Look in Frankfurt at clook4@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Paul Gordon at pgordon6@bloomberg.net, Jana Randow

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