French influence:President Nicolas Sarkozy made a stunning debut in European brinkmanship last night, when he struggled to convince the Kaczynski brothers to accept the compromise proposed by the Germany presidency, after communications between Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Polish leaders apparently broke down.
Mr Sarkozy met alone for half an hour with President Lech Kaczynski, then embarked on telephone negotiations with his twin brother, the prime minister, Jaroslav, in Warsaw. Mr Sarkozy invited the British prime minister Tony Blair to sit in on the conversation. It was the sort of role Mr Sarkozy dreamed of when he said on May 6th, the night of his election: "France is back in Europe."
On the evening of his inauguration, Mr Sarkozy travelled to Berlin to dine with Angela Merkel. The German chancellor shrewdly channelled his energy, employing him as her de facto deputy before the summit.
He tried to soften up the terrible twins in Warsaw, and met or held telephone conferences with most European leaders.
At the summit, bilateral "confessionals" between Dr Merkel and President Kaczynski were instead quadrilaterals, with Mr Sarkozy and the Lithuanian president Valdas Adamkus also attending. "France too had a complicated relationship with Germany," Mr Sarkozy's spokesman, David Martinon, reminded a journalist who asked whether France assumed an intermediary role by virtue of history.
French media will doubtless credit Mr Sarkozy with whatever success the summit produces. He first proposed a "mini-treaty", in an interview with Le Monde 18 months ago. The term offended some countries, so in September 2006 Mr Sarkozy renamed it a "simplified treaty". This week in Brussels, it became the "reformed treaty".
Elsewhere in the EU, praise for Mr Sarkozy is less effusive. "France said No. Mr Sarkozy was completely in his role to propose a solution," said the Luxembourg foreign minister, Jean Asselborn.
"It was clear early on that the treaty would have to be slimmed down," said a senior European diplomat. "You can't copyright an obvious idea, but it's true he coined the expression."
Mr Sarkozy's promise to have the French parliament ratify a new treaty is ironic, since he was one of the first French politicians to demand a referendum.
"I don't see how it would be possible to tell the French that the European constitution is a major act and draw the conclusion that it must be adopted among parliamentarians, without bothering to ask the French directly," he said in May 2004.
Now Mr Sarkozy believes in what works - and hopes the French have forgotten.
The senior European diplomat contrasted the personalities of Dr Merkel and Mr Sarkozy. "Maybe it's because she's a woman, but Dr Merkel is the ultimate conciliator. She shares credit; he wants to monopolise it. The treaty will be recognised as essentially the success of the German presidency. He will be part of that success."
A German source said Mr Sarkozy is seen as "the kind of reformer that Merkel would like to be, but cannot, because of her coalition with the SPD [ Social Democratic Party]".
Dr Merkel "doesn't try to be a star like Mr Sarkozy. She is cool and can wait, and she knows she will win at the end. She knows how to handle men; she learned it in her own party."
This summit tested Mr Sarkozy's friendship with Tony Blair; he had thought they had reached agreement at the G8 summit. "Sarkozy believes that if he's buddies with someone, that solves the problem," said Michaël Darmon, author of The True Nature of Nicolas Sarkozy.
"Sarkozy had to make a success of his first European summit; Blair had to make a success of his last. Sarkozy's over-personalisation of political relations touched its limits."
Peter Ludlow, the president of the European Strategic Forum, said Mr Sarkozy "played a useful auxiliary role" in trying to resolve the constitutional treaty crisis.
"Sarkozy is the first French president who knew from day one that he will be number two in Europe," Mr Ludlow said. "Because of the economy, and in personal terms, Dr Merkel is in another class, head and shoulders above all her peers."
Mr Sarkozy will defend French interests as fiercely as his predecessors. To placate the 55 per cent of the French who voted No to the constitutional treaty, he convinced Dr Merkel to cut the last six words of the phrase "an internal market where competition is free and undistorted" from the objectives listed in the draft treaty.
Though the cut was made before the summit, it led to a mini-crisis with Britain yesterday. The British relented only when a new phrase was added, saying the treaty does not change the legal framework of competition.
In another sop to French public opinion, Mr Sarkozy imposed a sentence saying, ". . . the Union promotes its values and interests and ensures the protection of its citizens".
However, he attempted and failed to replace a reference to "price stability" with a clause on "non-inflationary growth".
But Mr Sarkozy never gives up. At the upcoming Ecofin meeting, the French president will continue his feud with the European Central Bank over what he sees as the need for competitive devaluation of the euro.
He shelved his opposition to Turkish accession for the duration of this summit, but that too will resurface as soon as the ink is dry on the reformed treaty.