Germany hits brakes on Macron’s European dreams
BERLIN — French President Emmanuel Macron’s vision for a stronger European Union may be in tatters as a growing rift emerges with Germany on everything from defense to his plans for deeper eurozone integration.
Less than a year after his stunning election win on a pro-EU platform, Macron’s hopes of pushing through his bold post-Brexit reforms with Chancellor Angela Merkel by his side are facing a cold dose of reality.
“Macron’s European initiative is as dead as a dormouse,” Der Spiegel news weekly wrote ahead of the Frenchman’s visit to Berlin on Thursday, a chance for both leaders to take stock of the stalled reform process.
The talks will come as differences between the neighbors were thrown into stark relief in recent days, when Berlin — but not Paris — chose to sit out the biggest Western intervention yet in the Syrian war.
And while Macron laid out his lofty reform goals in a passionate speech to the European Parliament, Merkel’s own party publicly pushed back against his proposals for a eurozone budget and an expansion of the EU’s bailout fund.
Merkel nevertheless said she remained convinced both sides would find “common solutions” before an EU summit in June.
“Things are moving at a snail’s pace, if at all,” said Stefani Weiss, an analyst at the Bertelsmann Foundation think tank.
“I think we’ll end up with only very modest reforms.”
Inaction on Syria
Topping the agenda on Thursday will be talks on bolstering European defense cooperation, with Macron calling for a joint intervention force and joint military doctrine.
Berlin and Paris agree that Europe must be able to stand alone on defense in the face of US President Donald Trump’s isolationist tendencies — but it remains to be seen how far Germany is willing to go.
The airstrikes against the Syrian government last weekend by the US, France and Britain, in response to a suspected chemical attack, were carried out without the EU’s biggest nation.
Although Merkel supported the intervention, she ruled out any German participation.
But observers say the veteran chancellor, who has just begun her fourth term with a much-reduced parliamentary majority, was playing to the domestic gallery.
As the instigator of two world wars, Germany abhors the idea of getting involved in armed conflicts and Merkel anyway needs parliamentary approval before she can agree to any deployments.
Although the country has in recent years cautiously stepped up its role in multinational missions abroad, including alongside French troops in Mali, Germany remains reluctant to resort to military force.
Years of underfunding have also left Germany’s military equipment in a woeful state, leaving allies to privately grumble over the nation’s lack of combat-readiness.