Three significant and connected events for Europe's future took place over the Labor Day weekend. The first was the vascular ailment that put French President Jacques Chirac into hospital, and pushed into the open the discreet battle for the succession. The second was the big TV debate between the two candidates for the German chancellorship ahead of the elections later this month. And the third was the row that erupted over Turkey at the meeting of European Union foreign ministers.

Take France first, where Chirac has been something of a lame duck since the end of May when the voters turned down the new constitution for the European Union. He is 73 this year, and voters and political supporters get nervous when the leader is taken to hospital just like somebody's grandfather.

The rivalry between his two most likely successors, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, has been intense but muted, and waged mainly within the ruling UMP party, where Sarkozy has the advantage. Now it is coming onto the public stage, where de Villepin's dashing looks and rhetorical flair may giver him the advantage. In a clear sign of Chirac's partiality, de Villepin was on Saturday asked to preside from the presidential chair at the weekly meetings of the national council of state. This suggests Chirac himself knows that time is running out.

Across the Rhine, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder may claim to have won the big TV debate with his center-right challenger Angela Merkel on Sunday night. But given Schroeder's telegenic skills that was never really in doubt. The real issue was less whether the untried Merkel would lose the debate, but by how much, and in the event she did very well. She was tough and feisty and kept the initiative and never let Schroeder get away from the biggest issue of all in the campaign, the 5.2 million Germans who are out of work and the 11.4 percent unemployment rate.

An instant poll for ZDF TV found 54 percent saying Merkel had done better than they had expected, compared to only 19 percent for Schroeder. All the main German opinion polls seem to agree that barring some dramatic new event, the reign of Schroeder and his Social Democrat-Green coalition is over. The polls all give Merkel's center-right coalition 42-44 percent, and Schroeder's Social Democrats get 28-31 percent. The Greens get 7 percent, just like Merkel's most likely coalition partners, the neo-liberal Free Democrats, and the Left coalition gets around 9 percent.

Those numbers have been stable for so long that only a debate disaster by Merkel could really have changed matters, and it would now take something close to a miracle for Schroeder to win. So he too is a lame duck, and the reform-minded Merkel may now get the chance to put her flat tax experiment into effect in Europe's biggest economy, and await results. But any sign of renewed vigor in the German economy, or any significant fall in the unemployment figures, would be a distinct improvement on the past 7 years of Schroeder's reign.

At this point in the narrative, President George W. Bush might turn aside a moment from the New Orleans disaster, or the Iraq crisis, or the gasoline price problem, or the next nomination for the Supreme Court, and drink a toast in Pepsi or go for a triumphal bike ride or find some suitable way to celebrate the eclipse of Chirac and Schroeder, his two European tormentors. And so he should, so long as the bike ride is a very short one, since Bush's advisers will then point out that Chirac and Schroeder were invariably ungrateful and usually unhelpful, but at least had one redeeming feature.

Both the German Chancellor and the French President support the entry of Turkey into the European Union. And their successors do not. And locking Turkey into Western institutions and democratic ways through the EU has been an important goal of American foreign policy ever since the Berlin wall came down. For Bush, demonstrating before the world that a predominantly Islamic state can take its place in one of the leading political systems of Western democracy is more than merely important; it is cardinal. Turkey is the keystone on which his entire rhetorical vision of a modernized and democratic Middle East must rest.

And just as opposition to Turkey's membership of the EU was probably the decisive factor in defeating the French referendum last May, so Merkel's opposition to Turkish entry is likely to help inst all her in the chancellery. Most European voters are against bringing some 75 million Turkish Muslims into their Christian club. Most European governments, like President Bush, see the strategic reasons for embracing Turkey, and have repeatedly voted to do so. The talks to start the process of accession are due to begin in a month's time, on October 3.

But a meeting of EU foreign ministers at the end of last week saw a spirited attempt by France, Greece and Cyprus to derail the process by insisting that Turkey first recognize Cyprus, one of the newest EU member states that also happens to have 30,000 Turkish troops still occupying the northern tier. That row was defused, but now Germany, Austria and France are all suggesting discreetly that perhaps Turkey might better be given a special 'partnership' arrangement with the EU rather than full membership.

Abdullah Gul, Turkey's foreign minister, tried to shoot down that kite Friday, saying that would not just be a deal-breaker; it would end Turkey's interest in the EU.

"Should they place anything short of full membership, or any new conditions, we will walk away. And this time it will be for good".

Then on Saturday Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a conference in Italy that it would not necessarily be "the end of the world" if Europe's promises proved worthless and Turkey stayed outside the EU.

The Turks are experienced observers of European diplomacy, and indeed as NATO members they are veteran participants, and it sounds as though the Turks have started to build their rhetorical bulwarks against the political humiliation that would follow if the EU finally said No. The prospect of a new Europe with Germany led by Merkel and France led by Sarkozy, each on record as opposed to Turkish entry, is a grim one for the Turks. It is also a serious blow to President Bush's long-term strategy of defeating Islamic extremism by promoting democracy across the Middle East.

Perhaps most important of all, it sets the stage for a whole series of consequent strategic differences between Europe and America in the region that holds the world's main energy supplies.

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