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Sometimes the E.U. seems like a union of two. last week, for instance, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder left other members of the European Union out in the cold when they topped a meal at the Elysée Palace with a deal that could shape the Union for decades to come. They proposed an unwieldy double presidency as a way to make the E.U. more democratically legitimate, transparent and efficient. This is not the first time that the holder of the six-month rotating presidency of the European Council, currently Greece, looked on from the peanut gallery as the reinvigorated Franco-German alliance made the decisions that matter. But despite its weighty parentage, the proposal won't be the last word on how best to govern Europe. For while France and Germany may have neatly solved their central dispute over the shape of the E.U.'s institutions, the initiative only begins to address the Union's biggest problem: the abiding impression among Europeans that the E.U. is all brains and no heart, an entity only a bureaucrat could love.

The Chirac-Schröder agreement is a classic E.U. fudge. Instead of sharpening competencies, they are creating new potential overlaps. The dual presidency could all too easily end up being a duel, with the two executives at permanent war. And the deal reflects the kind of "something for everyone" compromise that gives the Union a bad name. The Germans, with their federal structure and ambivalence toward national feeling, have always been committed — in principle, if not always in practice — to a strong European Commission. The French have been more keen to preserve national prerogatives, even to the point of sometimes treating the E.U. as a coat of mail to bulk up for national battle.

As they approached this week's gala commemoration at Versailles of the 40th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty, which sealed formal amity between hereditary foes, Chirac and Schröder decided, as Chirac put it, "that Germany and France would each take one step toward the other." The French gave in to the idea that the President of the European Commission should be chosen by the European Parliament instead of by the heads of the member states, a change that would lend the post more political edge, independence and democratic legitimacy. In turn, Germany acquiesced to France's campaign for a new post of E.U. President, who would chair the European Council meetings for two and a half years (with a possible second term), in place of the carrousel of national leaders who now swing into and out of the post every six months. A new post of European Foreign Minister would also be created, with a foot in both Commission and Council, and his or her own "European diplomatic service." That figure would combine the overlapping tasks of External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten and High Representative Javier Solana, who stay out of each other's way more by gentlemanly forbearance than by any clear definition of role.

There is no question that the proposal, which will define the debate in the ongoing Convention on the Future of Europe over the next few months, addresses some major faults in the E.U.'s current scheme. Too often in the past, six months in the presidency just hasn't been enough to forge compromises among 15 member states on a raft of complicated issues like immigration or economic policy. Getting to yes in that time after 10 new members join in 2004 would require a diplomatic sprint no one could carry off. What's more, the appeal of getting six months in the driver's seat flattens considerably when the chance only comes around every 121/2 years.

Still, the deal seems to bolster France's intergovernmental approach more than Germany's integrationist aims. Once campaigning for votes in the European Parliament becomes necessary, the Commission President will lose some of his austere aura. He gains political footing in exchange, but it will be increasingly up to the new president of the Council to pester national governments to deliver what they've promised. The new deal implies that a figure chosen by the heads of government (as the Commission President is currently) will have more standing to cajole capitals into compliance if he is somehow separate from the Commission bureaucracy. Instead of caving in to the idea that what issues from Brussels is bad, they would be better off clarifying the path by which popular will becomes European law.

In place of an elegant plan, Chirac and Schröder offer a highway project — a paving over of the problem that looks strikingly similar to the French model of dual leaders: a President and a Prime Minister. That system works when the two office holders are of a similar mind, as Chirac is with Jean-Pierre Raffarin. But when they're not, as last year's French elections showed, popular support can falter. And that's the last thing an already unloved and ill-understood E.U. can afford

• James Graff
• France and Germany want a dual E.U. presidency