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Pay-Off For Franco-German Axis
France and Germany have named their price for agreeing to the appointment of free-market Atlanticist José Manuel Durão Barroso to the post of EU Commission President.
Germany wants to install its man, Gunter Verheugen, as "Super-Commissioner" for economic affairs. Germany's chancellor Gerhard Schröder argued this weekend that "It would be good if Germany took on a special responsibility for economic policy in the European Union."
Good for whom, exactly?
Germany's economy is perhaps the most disfunctional in the entire EU. If the current German government has been unable to reform its own economy, the chances of it having any impact on the wider EU are slim.
That may be the point. Besides restoring some battered German pride, Verheugen's appointment would prevent the EU leaning too heavily on Berlin. As current EU Commission President Romano Prodi has amply demonstrated, commissioners are unable to disentangle themselves from alliances in their native countries, despite the windy pan-European rhetoric they generate. Verheugen can be expected to be no different from his colleagues.
As for France, the FT reports that Jacques Chirac is demanding France gets the post of EU Competition Commissioner.
Competition is one of France's many sensitive issues these days. The outgoing Competition chief, Mario Monti, had numerous bruising run-ins with Paris over France's protectionist rackets. In October last year, Monti threatened to fine France for its continued use of illegal state aid to business.
France's recently appointed finance minister Nicolas Sarkozy has attempted to allay trade union fears of public sector cuts with a renewed committment to propping up failed French businesses with taxpayers money.
Sarkozy also demanded that the same policy be considered by the EU at large.
As the FT reports, appointing a Frenchman to Monti's competition post would make certain that French protectionism received a more sympathetic hearing in Brussels.
