Berlin and Paris agree to stop public sniping

FRANCE and Germany agreed yesterday to stop arguing in public over whether the European Central Bank should do more to rescue the eurozone from a deepening sovereign debt crisis.

President Nicolas Sarkozy and chancellor Angela Merkel said after talks with Italian prime minister Mario Monti that they trusted the independent central bank and would not touch its inflation-fighting mandate when they propose changes of the European Union’s treaty to achieve closer fiscal union.

They also demonstrated their backing for Mr Monti, an unelected technocrat, to surmount Italy’s daunting economic challenges, in contrast to the barely concealed disdain they showed for his predecessor, media billionaire Silvio Berlusconi.