BRUSSELS: A landmark agreement between France and Germany on two separate presidents for the European Union appeared on Wednesday night to have paved the way for a new division of labour between national capitals and the union.

Reactions were mixed as governments digested a messy compromise between traditionally competing visions of how an enlarged EU should work — the fruit of months of effort to revive the historic axis between Paris and Berlin.

Other big member states were delighted, but critics warned that the controversial blueprint could generate new institutional rivalries.

Key details remained to be clarified about exactly what the French president, Jacques Chirac, and the German chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder, had agreed on Tuesday. But the plan is likely to have a huge influence on the EU’s future constitutional arrangements.

The proposals cleverly occupy the middle ground of the intensifying debate about the future of the EU, and were attacked by Eurosceptics and integrationists alike. Small countries and the European commission sounded uneasy.

Mr Chirac secured the German chancellor’s agreement to a permanent president for the EU council of ministers, where the union’s 15 governments, soon to be 25, make policy.

In return Mr Schroder persuaded France to accept that the president of the commission be elected by the European parliament, instead of being nominated in a quiet stitch-up between governments, as at present.

If implemented, the proposals will boost the weight of the nation state and increase the democratic legitimacy of the commission, which proposes and enforces laws.

But integrationists, even senior members of the participating governments, are unlikely to be satisfied by the Franco-German fudge. The German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, who fought hard for a single “super-president”, said last night he was disappointed at the outcome.

“It was very, very difficult to find a compromise,” he said. “We wanted a joint initiative.”

Spain’s Jose Maria Aznar or Tony Blair have often been mentioned as possible candidates for the first European president, who would serve a five-year or a renewable two and a half year term.

The plan is likely to set the tone at the Convention on the Future of Europe, where the former French president, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, is charged with drawing up a constitution by this summer.

“Any time the French and Germans agree on something, it increases the chances of that being the final outcome,” said David O’Sullivan, the commission’s top civil servant.

But the devil is in the detail. The union’s Heath Robinson structures are complex and rarely understood outside the Brussels beltway. And though the plan may satisfy Paris and Berlin, there are doubts over how it will work.

“It is more a barter deal than a genuine compromise,” said Andrew Duff, the Liberal Democrat MEP. “Neither could agree to each other’s proposal, so they accepted both.”

Romano Prodi, the commission’s president, has strongly opposed the idea of a president of the council, fearing an attempt to weaken his role. “We have to make sure we don’t end up with the problem ... of two competing power centres,” his spokesman warned.

Brussels’s experience of dual leadership is not encouraging. Since 1999, EU external relations have been handled by Javier Solana of Spain for member states and Chris Patten for the commission. Many believe another such arrangement at the highest level could suffer from similar problems of coordination and overlapping responsibilities.

“If there were a double presidency, there would one day be a conflict of legitimacy and cohabitation,” warned Francois Bayrou, an ally of Mr Chirac.

Spain and Italy also back the idea of a powerful president of the council, pleased to have avoided the “nightmare option” pushed by Mr Fischer: a “super-president” of council and commission that would erode the carefully-policed boundaries between the national and the supranational.

Smaller states such as the Netherlands and Belgium fear a power grab by governments at the expense of the commission and the European parliament. But there are signs that this may change. Denmark said on Wednesday that it could accept a system under which a president of the council was chosen in turn from groups of different-sized member states.

Sweden has already defected to the pro-presidency camp while Portugal is said to be warming to the idea. Finland could probably live with it.

The proposals will require far-reaching changes to the system of the rotating EU presidency, under which each member state runs the union’s business for six months. With 25 members, that would mean every country would do the job every 12 and a half years. Team efforts are likely to replace the current system.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.