EU ensuring that the new president will be keen to show his independence not just of France and Germany, but of Britain too.
Not only had France and Germany decided that private creditors would have to worry about losing their money, but they had also cut a deal behind everyone's back.
In fact it is Japan and America, not Germany and France, which have the highest corporate taxes.
The far left picked up a seat in Denmark, but did not break through in France and Germany.
Google has had its battles with the EU over the past decade, not least when Germany and France wanted to create their own competitor search engine in the mid-2000s.
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And if this is not enough, there remain obvious differences between France and Germany on the management of the euro once it is launched.
The main difference between the more flexible economies (meaning not just America but also Britain, Canada, New Zealand and others) and less flexible ones (Germany, France, the Netherlands and others) is not in productivity or even jobs but in the distribution of income.
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Whether or not the divergence between Germany and France is temporary, it poses some difficult questions.
Despite dashes to Frankfurt by President Nicolas Sarkozy, France and Germany are not in agreement.
If France and Germany are not spending even more on health care, one big reason is rationing.
That might explain some of the differential with France and Germany but not with America, which also has high employment.
France and Germany have not lost their traditional strengths.
This is still France, not Germany and even as Messrs Lang and Stirnweiss were this month extolling the region's virtues, so some disgruntled chassis workers were on strike, temporarily blocking access to Smartville and, with it, the production of the Smart.
Now almost 30 she has continued winning awards and honors not only in Japan, but in Germany, Italy, France, and Israel.
And unlike Germany and France, Italy's banks did not spend the past few years buying Greek, Spanish and Portuguese debt.
On capital productivity, Britain scores better than France or Germany, and not much worse than America.
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France and Germany have decided not to contribute to a review of the impact of EU powers on the UK, it has emerged.
It failed in the 1930s because Britain and France were unwilling to take forceful action against Germany and Italy, not to mention an increasingly militaristic Japan.
And with the rest of the G20 not in a position to play the kind of hard ball with France and Germany that Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Nicolas Sarkozy played with the Greek prime minister on Wednesday night.
It is EU members like Cyprus, France and Germany and not Turkey that have done most to stall Turkish negotiations to join their club.
Large members such as Germany and France may not be prepared to cough up further if they have little influence on the peripheral countries' spending habits.
However, two of the EU's most influential members, France and Germany, have decided not to take part after high level discussions, according to the Financial Times.
Major nations such as European champions Germany and France have not even reached this stage and Pearce believes he can learn lessons from their failures and the problems his team has had in qualification.
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The main cost advantage that central Europe has over Germany and France is not low taxes, but low wages: an average Slovak worker is paid about a fifth as much as his German counterpart.
But this assumption is passionately opposed by many of the countries left out, above all by Pakistan (bitterly against India's entry), Argentina and Mexico (which do not care at all for Brazil's pre-eminence), and Italy, which thinks it nonsense to have Germany, France and Britain as permanent members and not itself.
This will not, however, stop Britain from siding with France and Germany in other coming budget battles, particularly the fight against the commission's proposed spending increases.
France and Germany are drifting apart, not helped by the fact that their leaders, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, dislike each other and understand each other even less.
However, his other stops in Jordan, Israel, Germany, France and Britain are not considered part of that official congressional delegation.
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Similarly, France and Germany have made it clear they will not provide ground forces in Iraq.
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