Europe learnt today who will be its new powerful commissioners. There are 27 jobs but all eyes were on who would get the powerful economic portfolios.

France, in the face of determined British opposition, emerges a winner. After some hard lobbying by President Sarkozy the important post of Internal Market Commissioner has gone to a former French agriculture minister, Michel Barnier.

The concern in Britain was that he would have control over financial services for the next five years. His responsibilities would include the City of London with its hedge funds and private equity funds. The suspicion in Britain was that France was eyeing up new regulations to rein in the City. Britain made clear to the President of the Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, its concerns. Barroso signalled he would stand his ground against all the lobbying and pressure. In Paris they believe that the French president made some late-night calls to ensure he got his way.

There had been suggestions that, as a way of buying off the British, responsibility for financial regulations would be hived off into a separate portfolio. It did not happen. France got its way, although a British official will head the department under Michel Barnier.

The unknown question is how determined Michel Barnier will be to regulate complex financial markets.

The other powerful economic posts go to Finland and Spain. Finland's Olli Rehn has got the economic and monetary affairs portfolio and will be in charge of reviving Europe's economy. Joaquin Almunia is the new Competition Commissioner. Both men are experienced and competent and trusted by Barroso.

The Competition Commissioner is tasked with enforcing strict rules on state aid and preventing protectionism. During the recent recession it sometimes seemed that the EU was not upholding its own rules, as nation states embarked on rescues of banks, car-makers and other key industries. Barroso has vowed to make it a priority to resist the appeal of protectionism.

The Germans have got the energy portfolio and it is an indication of the importance attached to ensuring Europe's energy supplies.

In all the horse-trading over recent weeks over Europe's top jobs there have been three winners. France and Germany have underlined their position as key power-brokers and Jose Manuel Barroso has ensured that no appointments have eclipsed his influence as president of the Commission.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Newsvine |
• NowPublic |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

Next week the European Union is likely to know who will sit on the next Commission. These posts never gain much attention in the popular press, but for the aficionados these are the top jobs in Euroland. A commissioner is hugely influential and controls the agenda in whatever field they are responsible for.

There are always suspicions of deals, of carve-ups, of the bigger states getting their way. Yesterday the President of the Commission, Jose Manuel Barroso, vowed to resist the pressure from the member states. To a degree, I suspect.

This time round there is increased fretting over the emergence of a Franco-German axis. France and Germany, it is said, want the all-important economic portfolios in order to control the EU's economic agenda.

Many in Britain fear that the French want their man, Michel Barnier, as the commissioner in charge of the internal market. They see in this a long-held French desire to regulate the City of London with its hedge funds and private equity funds.

Just in case no one was listening President Sarkozy said: "France will have a European commissioner with important responsibilities". His remark did not contain much doubt.

The most important part of the EU is the single market and power lies in regulating that. France and Germany, like other countries, know that the key to influence lies with just a few posts. Many suspect that Germany is also eyeing the presidency of the European Central Bank.

The Paris - Berlin axis, in its current form, is a recent embrace. Initially President Sarkozy, in a burst of energy, was preoccupied with his own projects and establishing himself as Europe's most visible leader. Then he began pursuing Chancellor Angela Merkel. He knows he is stronger inside a Franco-German alliance.

So how does this axis reveal itself?

- The choice of Herman Van Rompuy to be President of the European Council was interpreted in France and the UK as a victory for Merkel-Sarkozy. They had said beforehand they would reach an agreement together and not oppose each other. In Paris the rejection of Tony Blair was seen as a victory for Franco-German unity.

- Angela Merkel went to Paris for France's Armistice Day. She was the first German leader to take part. President Sarkozy enthused that the Franco-German friendship was a "treasure".

- The last time the two leaders met, President Sarkozy is said to have given Angela Merkel a copy of the notes General De Gaulle had taken at his first meeting with Chancellor Adenauer in 1958. Surely a sign that he wants the Sarkozy-Merkel relationship to follow that of Francois Mitterrand with Helmut Kohl and De Gaulle with Adenauer.

- France's loose-lipped Europe Minister Pierre Lellouche wrote in Le Monde that "more than ever the relationship between France and Germany will form the heart of what I would call the third phase of post-war European history". There is much talk of a "new Franco-German agenda for Europe".

In Paris and Berlin it is not difficult to hear this argument: that as the EU has expanded to 27 countries it has become harder to tackle issues decisively. That is what the Lisbon Treaty was supposed to address. But there are plenty of voices in and around government who believe that the 27 is too unwieldy and that only the two big powers have the will to take on the big projects and chart the future course of the union.

So when big decisions are taken, like with the Commission next week, they will be examined to see the hand of France and Germany.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Newsvine |
• NowPublic |
• Reddit
• - What's this?

In future an immigrant arriving in Germany and wishing to stay may have to sign an "integration contract". That is the idea of the Integration Minister, Maria Boehmer.

The contract would set out basic German "values," including "freedom of speech" and "equal rights for women". The idea behind this is the club: if you join you have to accept the rules. "Anyone who wants to live here for a long time," says the minister, "and who wants to work has to say 'yes' to our country".

In different forms ideas like this are surfacing across Europe. The concern is that significant parts of European cities exist as "parallel societies". There is not a shared identity and so there is not a common citizenship. Politicians are concerned that if communities do not relate to each other it is easy for rumour and prejudice to flourish.

Initially one of the basic tenets of multiculturalism was that newcomers brought with them their own culture, which was respected. Increasingly, however, the mood is changing - migrants are expected to integrate and embrace a country's basic values.

The French are currently debating national identity and emphasizing "core values". The French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, has said that all beliefs are respected in France, but "becoming French means adhering to a form of civilisation, to values, to morals".

The French Immigration Minister, Eric Besson, said "we must reaffirm the values of national identity and of the pride in being French". He wants the Marseillaise to be sung as often as possible and the French flag flown. A parliamentary commission is looking into banning the burka - the veil that covers everything but the eyes. The French president has already given his view that "France is a country where there is no place for the burka".

Britain, too, has introduced citizenship tests. Migrants have to take language and citizen classes designed to help them integrate better. Only the other day Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that "British people want to be assured that newcomers will accept the responsibilities as well as the rights that come with living here, obeying the law, speaking English, and making contributions".

Identity has been a subject that politicians have been wary of but now, as a subject, it has become mainstream. Across Europe they detect voter unease and they want to head off that concern finding expression with extreme parties.

In 2001 I covered riots in the northern British town of Oldham. The far right acted as provocateur, but a mainly Muslim enclave called the Glodwick estate battled with the police. Five years later I returned. What struck me was how separate the communities had become. As far as I recall, the school in the estate did not have a single non-Muslim pupil.The headteacher told me that she could not talk to some of the mothers because they rarely left their houses. Occasionally the children were put on a bus and taken to another part of town so they could meet children from other cultures.

What rarely happened was that a child would go to a friend's home after school and so experience and enjoy different traditions. Now the situation there may well have changed, but I encountered a concern then about "parallel societies" - that they could not just be breeding grounds for myths about others but that they weakened the idea of the common bond.

It is natural for immigrants, when they first arrive, to want to live amongst their own community. It is often the only way to find work. In New York you still find a significant number of Irish or Italians working in the fire department or the port authority. But the vast majority of arrivals wanted to become "American" and to embrace their new country with all its customs and values.

In Europe the views of the ethnic minorities differ hugely. A poll in France found that only 4% of Muslims there want to live exclusively among other Muslims. In Britain some migrants from Pakistan and Kashmir are more cautious about living alongside other communities in the giant melting pot that is Britain today.

In Switzerland this weekend voters will be asked to decide whether to ban the construction of minarets. There are only about 300,000 Muslims in the country and many of them are from the Balkans and so do not practise Islam. But a handful of minarets has become an issue. As has happened before in Switzerland, the debate is surrounded by controversial posters, including one showing a woman in a burka standing by a Swiss flag flanked by minarets which look like missiles.

I covered the last similar referendum in Switzerland. Then the immigrant was portrayed as a "black sheep". Many rejected the tone of the debate, but it was not difficult to find people fearful that their known world was disappearing, that their national identity was being diluted.

So, across Europe, there is an active debate as to whether more should be asked of migrants to embrace the societies they are joining.

• Bookmark with:
• del.icio.us |
• Digg |
• Newsvine |
• NowPublic |
• Reddit
• - What's this?