Insight
A very French Europe? by Charles Grant, 26 April 2022 Emmanuel Macron’s decisive victory in the presidential election will reinforce France’s pre-eminent position in the EU. But Macron won’t have everything his own way: some Central and Eastern European member-states will oppose French policies, the British will remain a headache and the Germans may thwart some French ideas. In recent years Macron has emerged as by far the most influential European leader. He is an inexhaustible fountain of fresh ideas on the future of the EU: some of these are soon forgotten but he pursues others with force and determination. No other European leader can match his dynamism or intellectual energy. It helps the French that the British, who often countered French thinking, have left the scene, and that Germany’s hugely influential and longstanding chancellor, Angela Merkel, has retired. The new German government – a fissiparous three-party coalition led by the relatively inexperienced Olaf Scholz – is still finding its feet. France has installed its friends or nationals in key Brussels jobs, including the presidents of the European Commission and the European Council, the commissioner responsible for industry and the director-general in charge of competition policy. Macron enjoys warm relations with Mario Draghi, Italy’s highly-respected prime minister. Even more important for French influence, the world has changed in ways that resonate with French thinking. Growing fears of unfair competition from Chinese companies, Covid-inspired worries about the resilience of international supply chains, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine raising questions about energy security and defence have strengthened French arguments in favour of European ‘strategic autonomy’ and a more active industrial policy. During his early years in the Elysée, Macron’s effectiveness was sometimes marred by inept diplomacy, but he has learned from his mistakes. In the summer of 2019 he launched an initiative to build a dialogue with Vladimir Putin, without consulting Berlin or the Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) which cared most about relations with Russia. The initiative upset several member-states and achieved nothing. But during this year’s Ukraine diplomacy, in which Macron has frequently spoken to Putin, he has made every effort to consult and inform American and European partners about his conversations (even though those conversations have still annoyed some Europeans).
CER INSIGHT: A very French Europe? 26 April 2022
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