Backsliding on fiscal reforms poses the biggest threat to the economic recovery in Europe, chancellor Angela Merkel said today, pointing to Germany's 2015 budget plan as an example of how to get away from debt-financed growth.

“We have to take it very seriously when the (European)

Commission rightly warns that backsliding on reforms is the biggest risk for further recovery,” she told Germany’s lower house of parliament in a debate on next year’s budget.

“Sticking to our own commitments in Europe, especially in the euro zone, has to become the hallmark of the euro zone,” said the chancellor.