Lafontaine finds his place in `Sun'

Germany's Finance Minister, Mr Oskar Lafontaine, yesterday became a front-page demon for the British tabloid, the Sun - for the second time in less than a fortnight. Last week, the paper asked if Mr Lafontaine was "the most dangerous man in Europe", reproducing the headline in German.

Yesterday's headline was "Foxtrot Oskar" - a barrack-room slang phrase based on the phonetic alphabet.

Mr Lafontaine's offence has been to call for the harmonisation of tax rates within the EU, a demand he reinforced on Tuesday with a call for an end to unanimous voting on tax issues. This would mean that a majority of EU member-states could oblige Britain - or Ireland - to change their tax rates.

Mr Lafontaine's tax proposals are just as unpopular in Dublin as in London and the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Mr Wim Duisenberg, said this week that tax harmonisation could take decades. But legitimate objections to the proposals are being drowned out by the din of anti-German sentiments in the British conservative press.

The finance minister is far from popular in Germany, where he is blamed for the new government's shaky start. As chairman of the governing Social Democrats, he is the most powerful man in government after Chancellor Gerhard Schroder.

Although they worked successfully together during the election campaign, Mr Lafontaine and Mr Schroder make little effort to disguise their personal rivalry. They could not be more different in terms of political style, with the chancellor cultivating a moderate, business-friendly image, while the finance minister appears to relish confrontation.

Within weeks of taking office, he has upset the Bundesbank, the ECB and a number of Germany's European partners. He is in a constant state of war with business leaders and, even within his own party, he is widely disliked for his high-handed behaviour.

The German press taunts Mr Schroder with the charge that Mr Lafontaine has taken over the government. Few German journalists are friendly with Mr Lafontaine but they do not attack him personally in the manner of the Sun.

They target his wife instead. At 42, Ms Christa Muller is a wife and mother who enjoys picking mushrooms near the Lafontaine family home in the tiny southern state of the Saar. But she is also a distinguished economic theorist, who speaks her mind about interest rates, globalisation and the best way to create more jobs. When she discussed those issues on a chat show last month, the German press became almost inarticulate with indignation.

The Berlin tabloid BZ came closest to the spirit of the Sun by demanding to know: "Is Germany's financial policy being decided in the marriage bed?"