Macron is poised to make a move to be the EU’S most influential leader

‘Mutualised debt is taboo in Mrs Merkel’s party after the Greek bail-out – and she is politically weaker than she once was’

Emmanuel Macron has grown tired of waiting for Angela Merkel to back his dreams of closer European integration. Instead of relying on the German Chancellor, the French president has found new allies in the EU’S corridors of power.

And he hopes to use the coronavirus crisis to force through his long-stalled plans for eurozone reform, including a shared budget, pooled bail-out fund and finance minister.

He is spearheading an alliance of southern and Mediterranean countries, including Italy, Spain and Portugal, which wants a eurozone fund that could issue common debt with a common guarantee to help finance the economic recovery from the pandemic.

This stands in direct opposition to Mrs Merkel, who leads fiscally conservative northern member states that have no desire to underwrite debt to fund spending in other countries.

Mr Macron’s group demanded the creation of EU “coronabonds” to help spur economic recovery. That was blocked by Germany and the Netherlands. Mutualised debt is taboo in Mrs Merkel’s party after the Greek bail-out – and she is politically weaker than she once was.

The conflict has reopened wounds between the EU’S north and its south, which was characterised as wasteful and imprudent. Countries such as Italy and Spain are tired of being lectured by the north on fiscal prudence, especially after the EU failed to come to Rome’s support in the initial stages of the crisis.

Mr Macron nailed his colours to the mast in the Financial Times on Thursday. He told Berlin it risked the collapse of the “whole European idea” if it failed to back his plans.

“They’re for Europe when it means having your labour come over and produce the car parts we no longer make at home, “he warned populist politicians would say in the south, “but they’re not for Europe when it means sharing the burden.”

“It is no longer possible … to have financing that is not mutualised for the spending we are undertaking in the battle against Covid-19,” he added.

Mr Macron rubbed salt in the wound but, characteristically, did it in a very clever way by claiming France had some responsibility for the Second World War.

He compared a failure to agree the coronavirus fund to France’s “colossal” error in demanding reparations from Germany after the First World War, laying the groundwork for Hitler’s rise.

Mr Macron is a disrupter par excellence. He famously destroyed the French political party system by creating En Marche and claimed the French presidency. And with his rare public attack on Mrs Merkel, he has smashed another long-held orthodoxy.

Traditionally in the EU, the president and chancellor drive the great leaps forward toward “ever closer Union”.

Paris and Berlin have historically provided the EU’S leadership but the famous Franco-german engine of EU policymaking has been spluttering.

Recently, they found themselves at odds in public over Brexit, EU enlargement and choice of leader of the European Commission.

In 2017, Mr Macron spoke at the Sorbonne, setting out his vision of a pooled eurozone bail-out fund and budget, looking to Mrs Merkel for support. Two and a half years later, he is still waiting.

It is clear that Mr Macron has found new allies for his fights in Brussels. If he can bust the taboo of mutualised debt in the EU with the coronavirus fund, it will stay broken. A precedent will be set and Brussels does not surrender newly won territory lightly. Mr Macron’s eurozone reforms will be a step closer to reality.

However, Mrs Merkel may be weakened and in her final term in office but she is still a formidable opponent.

Few in Brussels, where she is called the “Queen of Europe”, would bet against her ahead of next week’s EU “e-summit” of leaders.

But Mr Macron, her heir apparent, is a man in a hurry and is ready to make a grab for Mrs Merkel’s crown as the EU’S most influential leader.