Merkel and Sarkozy to dine on brief encounter
Amid friction in the Franco-German relationship, Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to dine Monday with President Nicolas Sarkozy during a brief encounter at the CeBIT computing trade fair. Sarkozy will be in Hanover, Germany to highlight the software prowess of France, which has been appointed this year's "partner nation" of CeBIT, an annual, 75-nation expo that begins Tuesday. The president has regularly flown the flag for French exports, so there was no question of missing the Monday evening ceremonies to launch the fair, which focusses on the computing needs of government and big corporations.
Sarkozy's plan to set up a Mediterranean Union, an organization for southern European Union states to consult with non-EU neighbours, has annoyed Berlin, which objects to a forum where it will be on the outer. Merkel says she supports closer relations in the region but opposes setting up a new organization to manage them.Berlin's warnings against "parallel structures" have been rejected by Sarkozy aides, who say there has been a Council of the Baltic Sea States since 1992 on the EU's northern flank. But the Germans say this is not a valid argument, since most of the nations on that sea are now EU members.
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