Chirac: sole voice for Franco-Germany

The bonjour was French but the silver limousine was German as Mr Jacques Chirac, sole voice of Franco-Germany for a day, swept…

The bonjour was French but the silver limousine was German as Mr Jacques Chirac, sole voice of Franco-Germany for a day, swept into a European Union summit.

In a first in European history, intended to underline their close political partnership, the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder, asked President Chirac to speak for him at yesterday's short concluding session of the otherwise humdrum EU summit.

Mr Schröder and his ministers had to fly home to Berlin to speak and vote in a knife-edge parliamentary debate on labour market reforms on which his political fate depended.

"I was not representing Germany as such. I was, so to say, the spokesman for the absent German chancellor," Mr Chirac told a news conference after addressing the meeting on their joint behalf.

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"It was a sign of confidence and friendship which I found particularly touching, so I just limited myself, at his request, to making the comments I was asked to make in Germany's name. It so happened that his comments were identical to those that France wanted to make anyway," he added.

Fellow leaders greeted the novelty with a mixture of admiration, curiosity and amused scepticism. Sceptics branded it an act of gesture politics which just proved that no important decision was on the agenda.

Mr Schröder's European affairs adviser, Mr Reinhard Silberberg, sat just behind Mr Chirac, ready to advise him on German views if necessary, while Berlin's EU ambassador, Mr Wilhelm Schönfelder, sat silently in the German seat at the table.

Mr Chirac, who does not speak German, had an interpreter to help him understand the advice and later to field a flurry of questions thrown at him in German at his news conference.

Asked if he would let Mr Schröder put France's case if political pressure kept him from a future summit, Mr Chirac replied: "Naturally, if the same situation arises, we will."

The Luxembourg Prime Minister, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker, could not resist the temptation to take a swipe at Paris and Berlin for their common failure to obey EU rules limiting budget deficits to 3 per cent of gross domestic product.

Asked why Mr Schröder had asked Mr Chirac to represent Germany rather than Luxembourg, he quipped: "Because France will be able to explain in a marvellous way why Germany is incapable of respecting the 3 per cent limit."

Some leaders were moved to declare whom they would never want to represent them at the EU table.

Mr Juncker said he had no intention of asking neighbouring Belgium to speak for his tiny Grand Duchy, and the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern ruled out ever letting Britain be his spokesman.

"I think we will always be at the day where Ireland will speak for Ireland," he told reporters.