Brussels briefing

Merkollande partnership forges ahead

Looks like we will all be living in Merkollande for the next few years as the relationship between German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president elect François Hollande will be off to a flying start.

Within hours of being sworn in as president tomorrow, President Hollande, a Socialist, will arrive in Berlin for talks after being treated to full military honours, walking shoulder to shoulder with Merkel. Now she needs him in a nice little twist of fate as his election has emboldened German socialists who threaten to dump the fiscal treaty without Hollande’s growth pact. He needs it to get the Treaty through the French assembly also — so it sounds like a match made in euro-heaven.