Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel yesterday gave their full backing to the reappointment of José Manuel Barroso as European Commission president, but demanded he commit to a more ambitious programme for his second term.
Buoyed by the success of their centre-right parties in European elections, the French president and German chancellor set out to assert their leadership over the European Union's executive, saying they had a responsibility to resolve growing public disillusionment with the EU.
While there is broad support among European governments for Mr Barroso's reappointment as head of the EU's executive arm, there has been growing criticism in some countries of his lack of activism during the economic crisis.
In France and elsewhere Mr Barroso is seen as an exponent of a discredited deregulatory agenda and is accused of failing to lead a co-ordinated EU response to the economic crisis.
Speaking at the Elysée Palace, the French and German leaders weighed in behind Mr Barroso, but instructed him to spell out what he intends to do in a second five-year term.
"We want to talk about the programme as well," Ms Merkel said.
Mr Sarkozy called on Mr Barroso to commit himself "to a programme, principles and values", adding that he wanted a more active Commission that would make a priority of tightening regulation of financial markets in the EU.
"He [Mr Barroso] has a duty to ensure that Europe protects the Europeans, that he commits to a drive for better financial regulation, as we decided with the Larosière report, and that he brings political will to Europe," he said.
Mr Sarkozy also issued a warning to Britain, which opposes aspects of the report by Jacques de Larosière , a former French central banker, urging greater harmonisation of EU financial supervision.
"We cannot backtrack. We want the Larosière report. We will see how we can reach agreement with the British. But there is a very strong Franco-German determination to not scale back our ambitions on financial regulation."
Commission officials last night insisted to the Financial Times that Mr Barosso was planning an ambitious agenda and wanted governments to sign up to it.
The French president also indicated he no longer objected to the formal ratification of the Commission president before the Lisbon treaty, with its new institutional rules, comes into effect in the autumn.
Mr Sarkozy and Ms Merkel said the European parliament - which has a joint say on the top Commission job - could ratify the nomination next month, if it wanted to.
But the French president suggested Mr Barroso's appointment might have to be ratified a second time once the new rules were in place, assuming the Irish voted yes to the Lisbon treaty in a referendum, probably in October.
Mr Sarkozy and Ms Merkel said European governments would need a further six months to decide whether to continue with the A400M military aircraft made by Franco-German EADS
. Some countries in the €20bn programme are threatening to pull out because of delays .
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