"The completion of Europe's political integration will de-A pend decisively on France and Germany," proclaimed Joschka Fischer, Germany's foreign minister, in a famous speech two years ago. Since then, the "Franco-German couple" have spent more time squabbling than building Europe. But Europe's federalists are now feeling a lot more cheerful. Their champion, Mr Fischer, has just taken his seat as Germany's representative at the European Union's constitutional convention. His first speech last week got a standing ovation. And the Franco-German couple are once again casting amorous glances at each other, after their long period of estrangement. Just before the EU'S recent summit at the end of last month, Jacques Chirac, France's president, and Gerhard Schroder, Germany's chancellor, startled their 13 colleagues by striking a deal on the future of farm reform and the EU budget. The following week it happened again. The Union's finance ministers were assembling in Brussels, when their French and German colleagues pre-empted them by issuing a joint declaration on the need to change the rules governing Europe's single currency. The big question now is whether "the relaunch of the Franco-German couple", as the French and German papers are calling it, is just a series of brutish one-night stands or a lasting commitment which can once again determine the EU'S future.
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