It looked almost as if it could have been a wedding when German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy walked into the conference hall of the European Council building in Brussels last Monday. They nodded at each other and exchanged pecks on the cheek, the other heads of state and government moved aside.
The two, of course, were not in Brussels to be betrothed. Rather, they were the main characters at yet another European Union summit. This time, they were seeking support for their fiscal pact, which together they had hammered out in the hopes that it could contribute to saving the EU and its common currency.
Once the pact had received the necessary backing, Merkel was visibly pleased -- and she made no attempt to hide her affinity for Sarkozy. "My political views are well known," she said following the summit. And then came a sentence that had been previously unimaginable for a German chancellor. "Nicolas Sarkozy supported me during my campaign. In the same way, I will now pay back that which he gave me."
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