THE TELEGRAPH: Franco-German relations have hit a new low after Angela Merkel slapped down Nicolas Sarkozy to assert Germany's control over the European Union's economic recovery.
The French president has surrendered to the German Chancellor's demands on EU economic governance and her idea of "red cards" for member states that break spending rules set in Brussels.
Mr Sarkozy had been determined to create an "economic government" of the 16 eurozone countries with a powerful secretariat to coordinate national budgets, tax and spending.
But Chancellor Merkel refused to accept his plan, insisting that it extend to all 27 states with the euro continuing to be run by the European Central Bank.
She won out after a tense meeting saying it was a red line issue for Germany.
"The members of the EU have to look at themselves as a kind of economic government. We must not create the members of the first and second class," she said.
The German victory is also bad news for David Cameron who had been hoping for French support in keeping Britain out of such measures. They include an EU demand to vet the British budget before it is presented to the House of Commons or the public.
President Sarkozy was then bludgeoned into accepting a German ultimatum that euro zone states that persistently breach budget deficit limits should have their voting rights suspended on economic issues, even if that requires changing the EU treaty. Previously, the issue of treaty change has been taboo for Mr Sarkozy who fears a French referendum. "If a treaty change is needed we will propose it," he conceded in Berlin.
Attempting to paint a gloss of unity over the talks, the French president claimed that "more than ever, Germany and France are determined to talk with one voice".
Nicolas Dupont-Aignan, a French Eurosceptic MP, blasted Mr Sarkozy's climbdown as "a capitulation while in pitched battle".
"Germany has imposed its European choices on a submissive France, which has definitively given up on its own (choices)," he said. "Faced with a suicidal and unilateral Germany, France has once again been totally absent, forgetting that in a couple, it takes two to tango". >>> Henry Samuel in Paris and Bruno Waterfield in Brussels | Tuesday, June 15, 2010
