LONDON: The French president, Jacques Chirac, and Tony Blair will meet this week on the margins of the Nato summit amid growing British concern that a Franco-German axis is once again taking a grip of the EU’s future, which may include the election of a new super-president for Europe.

The French government remains furious at the rebuke directed at President Chirac by Tony Blair over the common agricultural policy (CAP) at the EU summit in Brussels.

The dispute led to the suspension of an Anglo-French summit due to be staged at Le Touquet in December. No new date for the summit has been agreed, and the timetable may now slip until February.

French diplomatic sources have warned that a further attempt to reopen the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) budget debate by Blair will be regarded as “a declaration of war”.

The French are incensed at the British imputation that the CAP, fiercely defended by President Chirac, acts as a brake on the economies of developing countries.

Alain Juppe, the former French prime minister and founder of the rightwing alliance that led to the re-election of Jacques Chirac, held talks with Blair on Tuesday, partly to see if a rapprochement could be achieved.

He claimed that Blair had acknowledged that the outcome of the discussions on Europe’s future in the convention may yet influence Britain’s stance on the euro.

Juppe, speaking after the meeting, said: “He made a link — this will be of interest in France — between the entry of the UK into the euro and the result of the convention and the reform of the institutions.”

Some British officials are concerned that the Franco-British disagreement may strengthen the Franco-German relationship, reducing British influence within the EU at a key moment.

In the first of three joint statements, Paris and Berlin issued a common defence policy for Europe on Monday, which was initially welcomed by Britain.

The French and the Germans will produce two further joint position papers in the next few weeks, including a new EU-wide policy on justice and home affairs as well as a position paper on the convention on the future of Europe, the organisation compiling a new draft treaty on Europe.

The paper on justice and home affairs is likely to call for a fuller role for the EU through a common asylum policy based on majority voting.

The French remain puzzled by what they see as Blair highlighting differences with the French over the CAP, and more recently over European defence. They believe he is behaving foolishly because the British need the French to help deliver German support on key aspects of the future of Europe debate.

They also remain angry at the way in which the British publicly sided so strongly with President Bush on Iraq, forcing the French to work hard to win support for the idea of a second meeting of the UN security council to discuss any material breach.

The joint Franco-German statement on the future of Europe debate is likely to prove difficult to draft.

The Germans, under the influence of its foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, have been pushing for a stronger role for the commission in the reworked EU constitution.

Britain and France have been pushing for a stronger role for the council of ministers.

In a search for a compromise, France has urged Germany to back a new super-presidency of the EU.

According to diplomats, the single appointed leader would head the European commission and the European council of EU leaders.

Paris initially backed a proposal by Britain to strengthen the power of member states by creating a long-term president of the council, inevitably a rival to the authority of the president of the commission, the EU’s bureaucracy.

Berlin had wanted to boost the federal institutions by having the commission president elected by the European parliament. Whitehall sources recognize that the French and Germans are trying to revive the motor that has always been at the heart of the EU. “They need to make a big push, but they are struggling to find common cause on a range of issues,” said one source.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.