A FRANCO-GERMAN MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE / THE FINANCIAL TIMES COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS ( RECOMMENDED READING )

A Franco-German marriage of convenience

By Wolfgang Münchau

Published: November 15 2009 18:49

A photographer managed to capture that briefest of moments, heavy with historic symbolism, when Angela Merkel and Nicolas Sarkozy held hands during the November 11 armistice commemorations in Paris. The German chancellor and the French president got on famously, and wanted everybody to know it.

It would be easy for a cynical reporter to belittle the ostentatious display of the Franco-German friendship. We all know the bilateral relationship has been poisonous for the last two and a half years, so why should we be impressed?

I believe the symbolism matters a great deal. It might even mark a new period of co-operation between the two countries. No, I am not forecasting a return to the times of Helmut Kohl and François Mitterrand. But a rational analysis of both leaders’ political options can come to no other conclusion than it is in their mutual interest to adopt, not necessarily an entente cordiale, but an entente stratégique , for three main reasons.

The first, and most important, is a desperate leadership vacuum elsewhere in Europe. Look at the European political landscape from the perspectives of Paris or Berlin. The European Commission has long ceased to provide effective leadership. Whoever is nominated as the first president of the European Council under the Lisbon treaty is likely to be someone with less visibility than either Mr Sarkozy or Ms Merkel.

What about the other large European Union countries? David Cameron, the Conservative party leader and expected winner of next year’s UK general election, has aligned himself in the European parliament with what is considered in Berlin and Paris to be a grouping of anti-European wingnuts. The most frequent question about the UK in Paris and Berlin is whether a Tory government will withdraw from the EU. Forget about the answer. All the damage lies in the question.

How about Italy? Silvio Berlusconi is seen as a buffoon, not a man with whom Ms Merkel or Mr Sarkozy would form a strategic alliance. Spain will be preoccupied, for the next half generation, with the consequences of the current economic meltdown. If there is political leadership in the EU, it will, once again, have to come from France and Germany. The two will have to work together because there is no alternative.

The second reason is that the countries may in fact have more in common than meets the eye. Their economies are structurally different, but less so than is often portrayed. It is true that there is a yawning gap in fiscal policy, which is likely to persist even if the German government were to maintain a loose policy stance in 2010 and 2011. But, in spite of different views, Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy will eventually have to agree on a credible fiscal exit strategy, or risk tensions that could cast doubt on the future of the euro.

Both governments broadly agree on the future of capitalism. They consider themselves liberal, in their respective national context, but opposed to the Anglo-Saxon variety of capitalism. And, together, they are likely to remain the only big powers inside the eurozone. As demand for global policy co-ordination increases, they must work more closely with each other before they can work with others.

Third, Ms Merkel and Mr Sarkozy are both likely to remain in power for some time to come. If they both win their next elections, another eight years of bilateral relationship beckons. They are both professional enough not to allow personal enmity to stand in the way of co-operation.

I am not predicting the two countries will miraculously start to agree on everything where they used to disagree.

I recall an American journalist observing in the summer of 1989 that in his four years in Brussels he had never witnessed the celebrated Franco-German friendship in action. The two countries disagreed on almost everything. France was pushing for a single currency, while Germany was applying the brakes. This was the time when the EU negotiated the rules for the internal market and competition policy – rules on which France and Germany vehemently disagreed.

French and German interests often did not coincide during the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s. The value of the countries’ relationship consisted of an occasional ability to pull together when it mattered. Without this, there would have been no European monetary system in the 1970s, or Maastricht treaty and single currency in the 1990s. You could have lived in Brussels for years and observed nothing but quarrelling diplomats and poisonous political advisers. And then one day, the leaders got together and surprised.

The need for France and Germany to pull together today is strong and ever more obvious to an increasing number of people in both countries. We know what happens when the two countries fail to co-operate in a time of crisis. Just witness the EU’s dismal response to the financial crisis, and the lasting damage to the internal market and the cohesion of the eurozone. Another such episode would cause even more serious damage, and raise doubts in many people’s minds about the long-term cohesion of the eurozone.

As Ms Merkel said in her speech in Paris last week, both countries will need to improve their relationship in the coming years. It is about time.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009.