‘Imperious’ Macron tests patience of EU partners
French president’s initiatives from Brexit to Russia raise hackles in Europe
Since his 2017 election victory, French President Emmanuel Macron has never been shy about promoting his desire to reshape Europe — but his go-italone diplomacy is testing the patience of some of his EU partners.
From his courting of Russian president Vladimir Putin to his rejection of accession talks for Balkan states and his reluctance to extend the Brexit deadline, Mr Macron’s willingness to ignore the consensus has antagonised even longstanding allies.
Philippe Lamberts, the co-president of the Green/efa Group in the European Parliament, and a political rival compared Mr Macron with the Star Wars character Emperor Palpatine, accusing the French president of being “drunk on power”.
“It’s someone acting quite imperiously,” said a Brussels diplomat of the 41-year-old Mr Macron.
In a sign of the political tensions at the heart of the EU, Mr Macron’s enemies in the European Parliament this month engineered a humiliating rejection of Sylvie Goulard, his candidate as France’s commissioner in the new EU administration. They are likely to challenge Thierry Breton, his new choice for Brussels, too — potentially giving a further unwelcome headache for Ursula von der Leyen, the incoming European Commission president.
Mr Macron’s approach has even begun to destabilise the Franco-german partnership that has always been at the core of the EU. Without always keeping German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the loop, he has courted Russia and Ukraine to try to broker peace, and done the same with Iran and the US in pursuit of a new deal to curb Tehran’s nuclear ambitions.
The irritants in the FrancoGerman relationship are therefore piling up, according to Daniela Schwarzer of the German Council on Foreign Relations.
When Mr Macron made his overtures to Mr Putin in the summer and called for a new EU approach to Russia, “a lot of people said he didn’t even inform us ahead of time”, she said. “It seemed to be part of an emerging pattern of unilateral actions.”
French officials and diplomats accept that Mr Macron is seen as arrogant by other Europeans — one said he had “a way of lecturing the others which is very French, and that annoys them”. But they defend what another called his “combative position” on Europe and say he is more consistent on matters such as Brexit (no extension without a good reason) and EU enlargement (deepen integration of the existing EU before adding new members) than rivals give him credit for.
Mr Macron models himself on Charles de Gaulle, and there are echoes in his behaviour of the wartime leader’s pompous style that so infuriated Winston Churchill.
“Our line is not for some kind of splendid Gaullo-napoleonic isolation,” insisted one Elysée official this week. “It’s true that Macron has a voice that is stronger and louder [than those of other EU leaders]. Yet it’s not to annoy his partners, but because he has a vision . . . The system must sometimes be shaken up a bit.”
Mr Macron is the most visible EU leader in foreign policy these days not just because he is eager to push his own agenda, but because there are no obvious alternatives. The UK is planning to abandon the EU within months, leaving UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson almost entirely focused on Brexit, while Ms Merkel is nearing the end of her political career.