Shaky friendship may be key to holding eurozone together

For a continent shattered by two world wars, it has always been important that Europe's leaders got on.

At the start, not only language and culture but mountains of corpses divided them: if they couldn't be friends, there would be no hope.

But it has never been easy. It is no accident the three pioneers of European union, the then French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman, the German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and the Italian Premier Alcide de Gasperi, had far more in common than the vast majority of their compatriots.

All three were devout Catholics from the margins of their respective countries, and all three were also native speakers of German.

Fast-forward to the present: never since the founding acts has the union faced such dire, divisive challenges - and again there is a winning friendship holding the whole thing together. French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel seem to be more often together than apart these days. They dine out together, they speak on the telephone; on Tuesday Angela gave Nicolas a teddy bear for baby Giulia.

They are capable of public spontaneity: when asked at a press conference if they were confident that the Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, would succeed in passing the budget reforms he has promised, the amused glances they exchanged were worth a thousand words.

That shared smirk over the reliability of Berlusconi was perhaps the truest moment of the whole event. "Merkozy" must present an image of happy togetherness or else. France and Germany have vital need of each other and, to minimise the stresses on the euro, it is essential that they appear in harmony.

But few people are fooled. "It's a necessary relationship," says an observer in Berlin. "In fact, they don't like each other that much at all. They don't get on - the whole thing is highly stage-managed."

It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall when Berlusconi met Merkel again after it came out that he had described her on the telephone as "an unf***able lard arse". One theory about that smirk she exchanged with Sarkozy was that it was very mild payback for his gross insult.

But then if Europe's leaders are a family, and Merkel and Sarkozy the de facto couple, Berlusconi is the wayward uncle.

Although Italy is one of the biggest eurozone economies, and its policy critical to the bloc's survival, Berlusconi's peers have long given up on him, says Open Europe think-tank's Mats Persson.

"I doubt Berlusconi has a good relationship with any of the European leaders," Persson said. "It's got to the point where no one takes him seriously anymore. The smirk that Merkel and Sarkozy exchanged shows where they're coming from. What he has said and done has strained relationships with all major European leaders."

Yet Sarkozy too showed himself capable of being notably unchivalrous on the question of Merkel's girth. "She says she's on a diet," the French President reportedly remarked to other European leaders recently, "then she helps herself to a second helping of cheese ..."

Persson said: "It's never been a fantastic relationship, but they are stuck with each other."

Relationships that may have been smoother in normal times are being put to a brutal test, Persson says.

"The eurozone crisis has had a very divisive impact on Europe. It's made it difficult for the leaders to maintain relationships on a happy basis." The smiles in the leaders' group portraits have never been more forced.

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