Franco-German crisis?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy will be extremely busy this Monday. 

That, at least, is the official reason why he had to cancel (“postpone”) the Franco-German summit with Chancellor Angela Merkel, which was scheduled to take place that day in Bavaria.

With his popularity at an all time low (and falling), and municipal elections less than ten days away, Sarkozy has concerns closer to home than re-energising the Franco-German tandem.  Yet it is divergent foreign policy interests, rather than domestic worries, that are the real reasons for the cancellation.  Disagreements over Sarkozy’s mooted ‘Mediterranean Union’ are the immediate cause of the cancellation -- but deep down neither country had an interest in amplifying and publicising the wider divisions and uncertainties over the general direction of the European project. 

Despite hailing from the same side of the political spectrum and sharing strikingly similar political career paths, the Franco-German duo is suffering from a serious clash of personality and policy, which the two leaders could hardly disguise at their first official meeting in December:

• Sarkozy’s volatile temperament, his attention-seeking style and his general disregard for social taboos sits uneasily with Merkel’s reserved, more long-term-oriented and principled approach. 

• Sarkozy espouses pragmatic policies based on strategic national interests while Merkel has adopted a different approach -- advancing an agenda based on democratic values.

So the list of disagreements continues to grow and now includes policies on climate change, the role of the European Central Bank, relations with the Mediterranean, Russia, NATO and China as well as preferences for candidates for the top EU presidential posts.

While it is not unprecedented for two new leaders to take time to get accustomed to each other, it is the absence of even a rhetorical commitment to the importance of the Franco-German relationship in EU politics that is worrying other European capitals.  With Paris taking over the six-month EU presidency in July, these bilateral tensions -- if allowed to continue -- will undermine any effort to inject a new sense of momentum into the European integration process.