President Emmanuel Macron and chancellor Olaf Scholz managed to wring a modicum of consensus from their three-hour meeting in Paris on Wednesday. But the establishment of bilateral working groups on energy, defence and innovation is unlikely to defuse tensions which have built up between them since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last February.
The Élysée said the two leaders held a “friendly” and “constructive” dialogue regarding “the directions in which Europe wants to and must go”.
The meeting replaced an annual joint Cabinet meeting, which was postponed for the first time in 20 years because there was so little common ground.
No press conference was held, nor was a joint statement issued. The leaders smiled and shook hands for the cameras for only a few seconds. Neither said a word to waiting journalists.
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Yet the relationship enshrined in the 1963 Treaty of the Elysée is so crucial to the functioning of Europe that both parties feel a necessity to save it.
France and Germany disagreed on fundamental issues even before the invasion of Ukraine. The war laid bare those differences.
Macron has worked tirelessly for a sovereign European defence. Former chancellor Angela Merkel was aghast when he pronounced the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) “brain-dead” during Donald Trump’s presidency.
Joe Biden’s election and the war in Ukraine have revived Nato. “The fact that a convinced supporter of the trans-Atlantic relationship, in the person of President Biden, has been elected is a blessing for all of us,” Scholz said on August 29th. “We have witnessed the indispensable value of the trans-Atlantic partnership over recent months.”
When Scholz announced at the beginning of the war in Ukraine that Germany would spend €100 billion to modernise its defence forces, Macron hoped some of those funds would be invested in Franco-German projects.
But Germany prefers to buy American, and appears to have lost interest in joint procurement with France of a European fighter aircraft and main battle tank. The announcement earlier this month by Scholz that Germany will oversee the creation of the European Sky Shield anti-air defence system with the US and Israel may have been the last straw that infuriated Macron and precipitated the present crisis.
Germany angered other European partners as well by unilaterally announcing €200 billion in domestic energy subsidies at the end of September. Critics say the fund will skew competition in the single market. At the same time, Berlin has opposed a move to cap gas prices in the Union.
The fact that Scholz could so blithely programme €300 billion in extra spending for defence and energy was a painful reminder to France of its massive budget deficits and status as a poor cousin.
The last two years have shown what Paris and Berlin can achieve in Europe when they work together. Macron and Merkel pushed through the historic, €750 billion Covid recovery plan in 2020. Agreement between the two neighbours made possible the EU’s unprecedented donation of €2.5 billion in direct military aid to Ukraine.
The war in Ukraine is accelerating a power shift eastward. Poland and the Baltic States believe France and Germany were too lenient with Vladimir Putin before the invasion, notably in the Normandy process which allowed the conflict in Donbas to fester. Polish prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki never ceases reminding “the European oligarchy” of Paris, Berlin and Brussels that “You were wrong, and we were right” regarding Russia.
Scholz advocates the enlargement of the EU to the Balkans and former Soviet republics, raising the number of member states to up to 36. “I am committed to the enlargement of the EU,” the German chancellor said on October 15th. “For the EU to continue to grow eastward is a win-win situation for everybody.”
France has accepted past EU enlargements with reluctance, preferring a more closely integrated core. Paris may fear being sidelined.
“It is not Germany that risks ‘isolation’ as Emmanuel Macron fears, but France, who would disappear in the chancellor’s European project,” said a front-page editorial in Le Figaro. “Germany sees itself as the centre of a Europe considerably enlarged to the East, from Ukraine to the Balkans. Paris would find itself relegated to the head of the ‘Club Med’ — Italy, Spain, Greece ...”