The two Governments could make a joint statement declining the means to combat tax havens

Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel met today in Berlin at the 11th Council of Franco-German Ministers. The meeting, which takes place between the extraordinary European Council of 1 March and 19 and 20 March, before the g-20 in early April in London, must allow the France and the Germany to refine their joint proposals on a new financial architecture. Paris and Berlin are on the same line for better regulation of all actors involved on the financial markets and all the products that are exchanged. The two Governments could make a joint statement declining the means to combat tax havens.

Today's meeting must also define the means of a "greater economic coordination" between the two countries. On a visit to Berlin last week, the Secretary of State for European Affairs insisted on this point, to the France and the Germany a "historical responsibility, faced with the crisis, to be a force of impulse". Paris has proposed in Berlin a "mechanism for the exchange of information in a structured way. In other words, it is to compel the two administrations to communicate more systematically on reform in preparation and to avoid as well as the French Government to learn by the press that the Chancellery decided to guarantee bank deposits or it launches in turn in premiums in the case to support its industry self-

Mobile.

Joint working groups

On the industrial plan, the two partners decided to set up joint auto and energy, working groups composed of business leaders and representatives of the Governments. They make proposals here in the fall to strengthen their cooperation, in particular in the field of research. Done weeks that Bruno Le Maire calls for the creation of a formal framework for cooperation between the Germany and the France, "to strengthen our ties and our synergies."

The climate is visibly appeasement between Paris and Berlin, after a stormy fall, where the German Government had been particularly anxious to limit its intervention in the economic sphere and not be forced to pay for the difficulties of the European countries most affected by the crisis. Since the beginning of the year, Berlin has adopted a second economic plan is the stimulus effort more than 80 billion euros over two years, and made it clear that it would support a small country of the eurozone if the it was felt. The recent European Agreement on the reduction of VAT rates, which the Germany was opposed for years, was highly appreciated in Paris. The Board of today will also be the opportunity to prepare the Summit of NATO in early April, jointly organized by the France and the Germany, and the installation in the France of a German unit in the Franco-German brigade.

It is not prohibited nor think that Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel will discuss the next European deadlines: Parliament in June elections and appointment of a new President of the Commission, finally appointment of new Commissioners, a sequence is organized on the basis of the second Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.