NEARLY AS WORTHLESS AS THE ISLANDS WE FOUGHT JAPAN OVER:

The New Franco-German Split: Only a few months after France's new president, Nicolas Sarkozy, hurried to Germany for a show of friendship, Paris and Berlin are again battling for dominance over European aerospace giant EADS. A showdown may be on the agenda for next week. (Christian Reiermann, 7/09/07, Der Spiegel)

German Chancellor Angela Merkel was unexpectedly frank in a chat last week with her predecessor, ex-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Sipping a glass of white wine at an event on Tuesday, Merkel told Schröder that Germany might soon have trouble with the new French president, Nicolas Sarkozy. Schröder, a glass of red wine in his hand, nodded and listened, having navigated troubles of his own with France. Merkel said Sarkozy had played a constructive role at the European Union summit in Brussels last month because his interests coincided with Berlin's. But it was only a matter of time, she said, before the Germans and French would be at odds again.

A date for the showdown may already be set. Merkel will meet Sarkozy in Toulouse on July 16. Scheduled as a routine meeting, the mini-summit could flare into something else. Schröder and former French President Jacques Chirac (Sarkozy's predecessor) exploited every chance to show that the two countries enjoyed a harmonious friendship. But the meeting in Toulouse will be anything but a chummy get-together. Sarkozy will try to cement French dominance in the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), the massive public-private parent company of aircraft manufacturer Airbus. The Sarkozy team's plans include nothing less than an assumption of power in the complex French-German company -- which, so far, has been organized to give equal say to Paris and Berlin.

But Merkel won't submit without a fight. The bitter tug-of-war over positions and financing shares currently transpiring behind the scenes resembles a strange mixture of arm wrestling and chess.

Though you could at least land a plane on an unpopulated atoll, unlike a Western city.

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 10, 2007 4:11 PM