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.

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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.

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There used to be a view of Europe: that France and Germany ran the union. It was fashioned to their design.

There used to be a view that Europe's leaders preferred backroom deals to the harsher light of open debate.

There used to be a view that, despite its economic power, Europe punched below its weight on the world stage. Other nations were frustrated at having to phone numerous European capitals in a crisis. It used to be said that the world was becoming a G2 - America and China, with Europe excluded.

So began a long, divisive process to change how Europe functioned. It ended up with the Lisbon Treaty. The larger union of 27 nations would function more efficiently and Europe finally would have powerful leaders who would rub shoulders with Obama and Putin.

Wind forward to the present. The key power-brokers in the choice of Herman Van Rompuy and Baroness Catherine Ashton were the French and the Germans. President Sarkozy and Chancellor Merkel coordinated their approach. They agreed not to oppose each other in selecting the candidates for Europe's top jobs.

They went for the Belgian Prime Minister, Van Rompuy, not because he was the best leader for the job. Germany's Angela Merkel said he offered "consensus". It is an interesting word that can be interpreted in many different ways. In Europe it often means "the person that is least objectionable". Some interpret it as "the lowest common denominator".

It should be said that Van Rompuy does not arrive empty-handed. He is an effective mediator but he is not a communicator who can sell where Europe stands. It will be interesting to see when he gives his first international interviews.

The key for the French and Germans was not to have a Blair-like figure who might overshadow them. The laws of power have not changed by the signing of a treaty.

In any system there is always some backroom horse-trading. It is not necessarily sinister. In the past few days Gordon Brown knew that Tony Blair would not make it, yet he and his ministers continued to support him publicly. It strengthened their hands in the deal-making. The French and Germans knew that if Tony Blair's name remained on the table it could split the member states. They were desperate to avoid it.

It enabled Gordon Brown to go to a meeting of the Socialist group of leaders yesterday and essentially trade in Blair for Cathy Ashton. From the British point of view it was not a bad deal. They have someone who is the Vice President of the Commission and at the heart of decision-making.

Earlier this week the British felt what support there was for Tony Blair was draining away. The final straw came on Tuesday evening, when diplomats received a Swedish paper detailing what the job of president involved. Under the Lisbon Treaty it had been left vague. There was mention of the need for a consensus-builder, a good chair of meetings. What had slipped away in the night was the role of being the voice of the EU on the world stage.

In that note the British understood the job had been redefined in a way that would not suit Tony Blair. He was called by Downing Street and by Thursday morning he knew it was over for him.

Of perhaps greater significance was the new emphasis of the job. The ambitions of the EU have been lowered. They have backed away from a powerful figure sitting at the world's top table. After being appointed Van Rompuy joked that he was anxiously waiting by his phone to be called in the event of a crisis. It was a joke because world
leaders will continue to make their first calls to Paris, Berlin and London. Part of the federalist dream has faded.

That is why some of those applauding the appointments are Eurosceptics. They can live with a relatively low-profile "chairman". It does not seem like another step towards a "superstate".

So the EU, in many ways, is back where it was. Certainly, under the new voting system it will be easier to reach decisions among the 27 member countries. But in choosing relative unknowns the EU has signalled it does not want new centres of power to challenge the nation states.

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