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Foreign Ministers Rock Out

Steinmeier and Kouchner to Record R&B Song

The French and German foreign ministers, Bernard Kouchner and Frank-Walter Steinmeier, are to record a duet together for release on YouTube. Fortunately professional musicians will be on hand to help out the two crooning politicians.

The European Union has an image problem. All too many ordinary Europeans find it, well, boring, with young people in particular being on the whole underwhelmed by Brussels.

So what better way to appeal to young Europeans than through the language they understand best: music? Throw in some banging tunes and some fat beats and they'll be crossing the "yes" box at the next referendum before you can say "European constitution."

That, at least, seems to be the approach which the foreign ministers of France and Germany -- the two countries which make up the famous "motor" of the EU -- are taking in a bid to promote international harmony: Germany's Frank-Walter Steinmeier, 51, and France's Bernard Kouchner, 68, are to collaborate Monday on a duet.

The ditty, which will be recorded on the sidelines of a Franco-German summit attended by German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, will later be premiered on the Internet portal YouTube and on the German Foreign Ministry Web site.

The two politicians will record the song in a recording studio in Berlin's Kreuzberg neighborhood together with young Turkish-German musicians, German Foreign Ministry spokesman Martin Jäger announced Friday in Berlin. Jäger declined to give further details about the content of the song or whether Steinmeier had been practicing.

However when pressed as to whether it would be a rap song, he admitted the composition would be more in the direction of rhythm and blues. "The result will certainly be listenable," Jäger said, explaining that professional musicians would be on hand to help out the two wannabe crooners.

It's not the first time that YouTube has been put to use by European politicians. An EU video which cobbled together extracts from the best sex scenes in European film got hundreds of thousands of views on the video portal earlier this year.

dgs/ap/reuters