The European Union announced plans on Wednesday to hold no fewer than three economic summits to iron out national differences that threaten to hamper its efforts at tackling the recession.
The move came after France and others questioned the ability of the Czech Republic — the small, ex-communist state holding the EU's rotating presidency — to chart a path out of the worst financial debacle in the bloc's 50-year history.
Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek vowed to end a public row over protectionism with French President Nicolas Sarkozy that has added to the image of European disunity, but said differences among capitals were inevitable.
"We have to realise that the individual member states have different approaches to solving this issue," Topolanek told a news conference in Brussels after talks with European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
"My goal is to hold a political debate at the highest level in order to strengthen EU cooperation in countering the crisis."
Aside from a long-scheduled March 19-20 economic summit in Brussels, Topolanek called a special one-day meeting of EU leaders on March 1 to discuss efforts to stabilise the financial sector, and a further summit in May to address employment.
The 27-nation bloc wants to present a united front at the April G20 summit in London but splits exist between the richer, western states that can afford to spend their way out of the slowdown and those, often eastern states, who cannot.
Ideological differences on the role of the state in helping industry have also prompted cross-border niggles over plans such as those announced by Sarkozy on Monday to provide 6 billion euros ($7.8 billion) of state loans to French car makers.
However, Barroso pointed to the tough political negotiations in the United States over its $838 billion stimulus package, noting: "This is not a specifically European problem."
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Prime Minister Francois Fillon goes to Brussels on Thursday to defend the French loan package — in return for which Renault and PSA Peugeot-Citroen have vowed not to sack French workers — but the EU's antitrust body has cited possible legal concerns.
"It is not protectionism. It is defending our industry and defending our jobs. I think it is the least one can expect from the government when faced by this crisis," France's European Affairs Minister Bruno Le Maire told French radio earlier.
EU leaders agreed in December to avoid unilateral stimulus moves that could have "beggar-thy-neighbour" fall-out on other European countries, but the deepening recession has triggered growing domestic pressure for measures to protect national jobs.
Finance ministers agreed on Tuesday to coordinate any measures to deal with the huge levels of toxic assets that have drained confidence in the financial system, but left knotty issues such as how to value those assets for a later date.
Divisions also persist on a Commission plan to spend 5 billion euros of unused EU funds on energy and telecoms infrastructure, and on how quickly over-stretched national budgets should be brought back towards balance.
Sarkozy singularly failed in a French television interview last week to defend the Czechs' performance as EU president — the role he handed over in January — saying merely that "they are doing what they can".
Czech diplomats complain at what they say is French sniping at their EU stewardship, and tensions spilled into the open this week as Topolanek hit out at Sarkozy's comments in the interview questioning car makers' locating in the Czech Republic.
"I will not continue this media exchange with my friend Sarkozy, which is very damaging for both of us," he said.
"Next time I will call him up." (Additional reporting by Marcin Grajewski and Ingrid Melander in Brussels, Crispian Balmer in Paris)
