French president Jacques Chirac and German chancellor Gerhard Schröder announced their plans after a January 14 meeting. The central proposal affects the president of the EU council, a position that is currently rotated among member countries.

If Paris and Berlin have their way, the position will be elected by heads of member states. A separate president would be elected to the European Commission by members of the European parliament.

Representatives of smaller powers objected to the proposal and to the French-German collaboration, seeing behind it the threat of domination by Europe’s big powers over the EU’s leading bodies. "The Netherlands rejects these proposals," said Apzo Nicolae, the Dutch deputy foreign minister. The Finnish representative to the European convention said the plan would result in a "system of oligarchy."

Before the announcement, the French and German governments themselves had presented differing proposals. "In truth there was a real problem where the vision of Germany and France were not exactly the same," said French prime minister Jacques Chirac at a January 15 press conference.

The agreement, he said, shows "once again...that the French-German motor--essential for the construction of Europe--is functioning well."

The two countries have the biggest economies in continental Europe. Over the past decade, Germany’s economy--almost 40 percent larger than that of its French rival--has lost ground against its competitors.

The two governments have taken differing approaches to the impact of economic slowdown that afflicts both countries in the push to closer integration of European markets. Paris has announced its intention to defy EU rules requiring member states to establish budget deficits below 3 percent of gross domestic product. Francis Mer, France’s finance minister, said economic problems would prevent his government from complying with a European Commission ruling demanding measures to reduce the deficit.

Berlin has pledged to meet the 3 percent limit, saying that it will further cut government spending to do so.

The developments within Europe occurred at the same time as the two governments, using sharper language than previously, took their diplomatic distance from Washington’s course in the Arab-Persian Gulf. In statements leading up to the state of the union speech by U.S. president George Bush, both insisted that the final decision to go to war should be made not by the U.S. government but by the United Nations Security Council.

Conservative New York Times columnist William Safire commented on the two powers’ actions in the paper’s January 23 issue, describing the French-German proposal on the EU presidency as a "stunning power play." Under it, he said, a "Franco-German czar would dominate a toothless president of the European Commission."

Safire accused Berlin of aiming to "saw off the Atlantic part of the Atlantic Alliance, separating Britain and the U.S. from a federal Europe dominated by Germany and France (with France destined to become the junior partner)."
 
 
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