All Together Now

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It's a bewildering sight: after a year of slugging each other over Iraq, here come Europe's Big Three leaders, bloodied, bandaged, limping — and leaning on each other for support. Tony Blair, Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder meet this week in Berlin, but despite the obligatory grins and displays of solidarity, the Three Amigos they are not. Not long ago Blair was warning publicly that Chirac was trying to drag Europe down a dead end of reflexive opposition to the U.S. in pursuit of a moldy Gaullist dream of French glory — and complaining privately that Chirac had it in for him. Chirac thought Blair was blindly following a dangerous unilateralist. Schröder tried to patch things up, but also made it clear that if forced to choose, he would pick France — not only on Iraq but on how the European Union should be organized as it welcomes 10 new members.

That was then. Now Europe's heavyweights need each other. Each wants to escape domestic troubles by looking statesmanlike, sitting down together instead of screaming, and using a display of E.U. clout to bolster their flagging fortunes back home. "A year ago, I would have said that a trilateral grouping like this would have little chance of getting off the ground," says Stephen Byers, a former British Cabinet Minister who is close to Blair and has been sounding out political opinion on the Continent on his behalf. "But now, precisely because of Iraq, there's a desire to come together. It just feels like the chemistry is right." But right for whom? The leaders themselves maintain that their partnership can bring direction and focus to a Union that's in disarray over everything from the Stability and Growth Pact to the proposed new constitution. But others fear that the Big Three are getting together to dictate terms to the rest of Europe. The trio could be the engine of a newly invigorated Europe — or the impetus for a slow-motion car wreck.

It certainly won't hurt the top men themselves, each of whom has an anchor chained to his domestic poll ratings, to be seen throwing their weight around in the E.U. Blair has been badly damaged by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq; one poll last week put his government's disapproval rating at 77%. Chirac's reforms have so far failed to jump-start France's economy, and he faces more bad headlines over the conviction of his close ally, former Prime Minister Alain Juppé, on corruption charges. Schröder's painful labor reforms have torpedoed his popularity, which has dropped from a 57% approval in June 2002 to 34% today, according to a poll for Die Welt. His Social Democrats face almost certain defeat in a string of local elections later this year. "All three men are very pragmatic," says Cord Jakobeit, a political scientist at the University of Hamburg. "If a joint initiative makes them look better on the domestic front, they will seize it."

In the past, Germany and France only needed each other to look good. Monetary union and the euro itself are parade examples of big changes they led. But with enlargement, "they have lost this precious status," says Christoph Bertram, director of the Institute for International Politics and Security in Berlin. "The rest of the European Union no longer automatically regards their decisions as in the interest of Europe." When they couldn't pull all of Europe into the antiwar camp last year, Chirac grew annoyed and said those who disagreed had "missed a good opportunity to keep quiet." Now, he and Schröder know that "if they want a consensus, they need the British view," Bertram says.

Case in point: the deal reached last December to have a separate planning unit for E.U. military forces — highly desired by France, Belgium and Germany, deeply mistrusted by Washington because of its potential to compete with nato. Blair delivered a compromise that satisfied France and Germany, and the rest of Europe followed. The Big Three also pulled together, outside the E.U.'s foreign-policy machine, to get Iran to accept enhanced nuclear inspections. After seeing Schröder for a warm-up meeting last week, Blair said it made sense to "resolve [issues] not simply always operating at 25 [countries] but also trying to work at them amongst ourselves."