France, Germany divided on growth ahead of EU summit in Brussels The disagreement also threatened a shift in the way the European Union has operated in recent times, suggesting new difficulties in charting a common course from often competing national interests among the EU's 27 member nations. In weathering the last four years of economic and financial storms, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French president Nicolas Sarkozy worked as a team, jokingly referred to as "Merkozy," reaching accord between themselves and then imposing a broadened version of their solution on the rest of the European Union. But that was before France elected a new Socialist president earlier this month who pledged to inject measures to promote economic growth into an EU fiscal discipline treaty reached last December after much patient diplomacy by the Merkozy tandem. Since then, talk has largely veered from cutting deficits and debt to stimulating European economies. "Even the best of discipline doesn't get you to a solution," said Nicolas Veron of the Brussels-based Bruegel research institute. It must be paired, he said, with "solidarity." A potential financial instrument known as Eurobonds has become the main bone of contention between Paris and Berlin. Eurobonds would be issued by national governments but backed jointly by the euro-zone governments. That means Germany's top-tier credit rating would stand behind the borrowing by heavily indebted nations, such as Greece and Spain, whose own limp credit ratings make raising funds costly. The new French president, Francois Hollande, has insisted on considering Eurobonds as a way to pull the EU out of its lull; he vowed to put the issue on the table at Wednesday evening's dinner meeting. French officials have suggested that the EU may not need to renegotiate the December treaty, as Hollande pledged in his campaign. But pro-growth steps - such as Eurobonds - must be approved for Hollande to fulfill his mandate, they said. For Merkel, however, the issue is a political no-go zone, repudiated by German taxpayers who have no desire to countersign on loans for their spendthrift neighbors. At a pre-summit background briefing in Berlin on Tuesday, her government declared once again that it views Eurobonds as a mistake and will not change its mind, no matter what Holland says or how late the dinner talks go on. "The socializing of risk and responsibility, which is the euro bond concept, would be very premature," said Steffen Kampeter, a German deputy finance minister, in an interview in Berlin on Wednesday. Common debt management may be at the end of a completely integrated fiscal and economic policy. I don't see that happening within the next years.