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Germany's Merkel signals continuity with Paris trip
(Reuters)
Updated: 2005-11-23 14:27

URGENT ISSUES

However, the challenges facing Europe, after the failed constitutional referendums earlier this year left the European Union without a clear roadmap, will test the partnership that has driven the EU from its inception.

"There are urgent issues, such as the European budget or negotiations around the World Trade Organisation and agriculture policy," said Isabelle Bourgeois, a specialist in Franco-German relations at the University of Cergy-Pontoise near Paris.

"But the real issue and the real justification for the Franco-German axis is the construction of Europe," she said.

Without a vision of how Europe can respond to globalisation, overhaul its welfare system to cope with an ageing population and reshape its institutions now that it is a 25-strong bloc, high flown rhetoric will sound increasingly thin.

Significant progress in these areas is likely to be disrupted by the French presidential election in 2007, when Germany holds the rotating EU presidency as well as by real differences between member states including France and Germany.

Merkel has already made clear that she believes many of the assumptions over the need for a strong welfare state that underpinned postwar policy in the west must be abandoned.

That on its own may set her apart from French leaders, who have vociferously condemned "neo-liberal" pro-market policies.

Much will still depend on the personal tone struck by the new Chancellor, whose sober, prosaic style contrasts sharply with her media-friendly predecessor Schroeder, who made great display of his close relationship with Chirac.

"I'm sure she'll want a very close and trusting relationship," said Andreas Schockenhoff, a conservative member of parliament and head of the German-French parliamentary group.

"Mrs Merkel has met Chirac many times, she has a good personal relationship with (Interior Minister) Nicolas Sarkozy. She knows the leading figures, she's been to Paris regularly. It's not unknown territory for her," he said.