Quotes of the Day

The morbid state of Germany's government wasn't on the agenda last week when Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and French President Jacques Chirac held a working dinner at a castle outside Berlin. Yet, perversely, Schröder's problems could help get relations between Paris and Berlin over a difficult hump. France has been nursing the Continent's most important relationship with a sense of wounded pride for the last few years. Not only did reunification make Germany the bigger partner, but the imminent prospect of a big-bang enlargement of the European Union threatened to put the Germans back at the center — and the French more on the periphery — of Europe.

But now it's Germany that is wounded, while Chirac, feeling his political oats as never before, seems more able to relax and put his political skills to work improving the alliance that is still the primary engine of the E.U. "It's more cold calculation than a warm handshake that brings these two together," says Henrik Uterwedde, deputy director of the Franco-German Institute in Ludwigsburg. "What's important is that they're determined to work with one another."

At their dinner, Chirac and Schröder laid out an important marker for this week's high-voltage European Council meeting in Copenhagen. They agreed that the E.U. should start negotiations with Turkey in mid-2005 as long as Turkey makes progress toward meeting E.U. human-rights standards. With Europe's two biggest countries pushing for a firm date, the E.U. seems set to make a commitment to Turkey that appeared impossible just a few months ago. France, where a recent survey found 58% opposed to Turkey's E.U. accession, had been angling for an even later date, but the new agreement would at least allow the 10 candidate countries to get in before negotiations with Turkey open. "The French were worried about facing the Turkish question at the same time they were getting their Parliament to ratify the new members," says a Brussels diplomat.

The decision rang alarm bells in Britain, which wants faster action on Turkey and eyes the Franco-German alliance with concern. On the eve of the last European Council meeting in October, Chirac and Schröder worked out a deal that assured France's princely take of E.U. agricultural subsidies through 2006, causing a contretemps between Tony Blair and Chirac. Now, it seems, the Continental giants have done it again. Turkish Foreign Minister Yasar Yakis branded the joint position "unacceptable," and his government will push, with British support, to get negotiations under way before mid-2004. "It's too early for us to give a harsh reaction," says a Turkish diplomat. "Things are happening every day."

Whether or not they prevail in Copenhagen, the French and Germans are clearly working as a team. They want a meaningful commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty, on Jan. 22, when Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer pledged strengthened Franco-German cooperation as "an indispensable step on the way toward a united Europe." Both countries want to amplify the E.U.'s voice in foreign and security policy, a task made somewhat simpler by the fact that nato — to whom Germany remains more indebted than France — is fading in influence. And both countries, having tied their fates to the euro, are keen to find better ways to coordinate budgetary policy among the eurozone's 12 countries.

But behind the declarations of intent, big differences remain. France has increased its defense budget this fiscal year by 6%, while Germany is cutting back. Defense Minister Peter Struck last week announced that Germany would be drastically slashing its pledged orders of Airbus military transport planes and air-to-air missiles. France is cutting taxes, while Germany keeps piling on new ones. And fiscal coordination? Well, they can't tackle that task with credibility until they get their own budgets in order.

Some 40 years ago, De Gaulle characterized France and Germany as two exhausted wrestlers with no choice but to lean against each other. Europe's future depends on them doing a good sight better than that in the coming years.

• JAMES GRAFF/Paris
• Paris and Berlin find common cause in pursuing their own agendas in the E.U.