THE leaders of France and Germany said yesterday they wanted Romania and Slovenia to be allowed to join NATO from the start of the alliance's enlargement, despite US objections.
President Jacques Chirac and the German Chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, both endorsed the two candidates after the US said on Thursday it wanted to restrict the first wave of NATO expansion to three central European countries - the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland.
"We will indeed support the candidacy of Romania despite the reticence expressed by the American government," Mr Chirac told a news conference after yesterday's Franco American summit in the French city of Poitiers.
Dr Kohl said Germany wanted all five to be given a clear message at a NATO summit in Madrid in July that they would be part of the development of the alliance.
Playing down Thursday's White House statement that President Clinton would only support the entry of the three favourites in the first wave of enlargement, Dr Kohl said: "One individual statement is in no way an advance decision."
A French official said the US position, which went against the wishes of a majority of European NATO allies for a broader enlargement, appeared to be dictated by the higher cost and concern in Congress over the budgetary implications.
John Palmer adds from Brussels:
The confrontation between France and Germany over parallel action to boost jobs and growth in Europe increases the prospects of a very different kind of monetary union in 1999 to that favoured by the German Bundesbank.
If a weekend of diplomacy aimed at reconciling Franco German differences succeeds, EU finance ministers will meet in Amsterdam tomorrow night - on the eve of the summit - to approve a declaration on jobs and growth. This would then be endorsed by the EU heads of government when they ratify the legal text of the stability pact.
But EU governments and central banks are, in any case, dropping clear hints that the Maastricht Treaty conditions for joining the single currency will now be interpreted more flexibly than the Bundesbank and other monetary conservatives had wanted.
When EU heads of government decide next April or May which countries qualify to join the single currency in January 1999 they are expected to nod through some - including France and Germany - likely to end up this year with budget deficits above the 3 per cent target mentioned in the Maastricht Treaty.
The treaty itself provides for a flexible interpretation of the qualification criteria. Countries can be admitted to the euro group with budget deficits above 3 per cent if they can show that this is "temporary" and that the "excessive deficit" is being corrected.
The less rigid approach to EMU qualification will almost certainly mean that a large group of EU countries - possibly 10 or 11 - will take part in monetary union from the beginning.
Indeed only Greece and possibly Italy will fail the entrance requirements for 1999 since Britain, Denmark and Sweden are expected to qualify but then decide to delay their membership for purely political reasons.