ROME, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- Italy's foreign minister suggested France and Germany have "pre-cooked" agreements between themselves to the exclusion of other members of the European Union.
Franco Frattini was referring to the Oct. 18 Deauville, France, summit at which French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel worked out a compromise on budget rules to head off financial crises like the one that took place recently in Greece, Financialtimes.com reported.
Frattini said the EU member states should instead establish a "vanguard group," or G6, to be comprised of the of the six largest EU countries, to broaden the consultative process.
"We can have consultations but not pre-cooked decisions taken by Paris or Berlin," said Frattini.
Frattini is the most senior official to express publicly the resentment toward the Germany-France alliance that European diplomats had expressed privately.
Frattini's proposal for a G6, which he said would be an informal consultative mechanism, would bring together France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland and Britain -- and might provisionally include other members.
