French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz promised Wednesday to do everything possible for a “united and strong Europe” in the face of the “challenge” that Donald Trump’s America will represent.
“President Trump will, it is already clear, be a challenge to take up,” said the German leader visiting Paris. “Europe will not shy away or hide, but will be a constructive and self-confident partner,” he added from the Elysée where he was received by Emmanuel Macron.
The French president called on the Twenty-Seven, and more particularly the Franco-German couple, to play “all their role” for a “united, strong and sovereign” Europe, which knows how to defend its “interests” while the new American president promises to massively raise customs duties against the EU and threatens to reduce its military support.
“The only response to the times we are entering is more unity, more ambition and audacity and more independence of Europeans. This is what drives us and it is in this sense that we will continue to act,” insisted Emmanuel Macron.
The two leaders met over lunch for one of their last major meetings before the legislative elections on February 23 in Germany, for which the leader of the opposition, the Christian Democrat Friedrich Merz, is the favorite .
The meeting was organized on the day of the 62nd anniversary of the Elysée Treaty, signed in 1963, which sealed the reconciliation of the two countries after the Second World War.
“Regain momentum”
Behind the scenes, French diplomacy is betting on a less laborious relationship with the probable future chancellor than with Olaf Scholz even if the two capitals have continued to work closely over the last three years on major European issues.
“The Franco-German couple must really reconstitute themselves and give Europe a boost alongside its president” of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, insisted French government spokesperson Sophie Primas.
Emmanuel Macron hopes for massive European investments in new technologies, including through debt mutualization – a taboo subject in Berlin – to face American competition. He also calls for a strengthened European defense and defense industry.
The two leaders called for support for European automobiles, steel and chemicals in the face of the blows promised by Donald Trump. An agenda for the next chancellor?
The conservative candidate Friedrich Merz himself said he was “very close” to the French president on Tuesday, during the Davos Economic Forum, specifying that he meets him “regularly”.
-In Paris, however, expectations remain cautious. “It will relieve everyone a little even if Merz is not easy either and if everything is not going to change radically with him,” notes Hélène Miard-Delacroix, specialist in Germany at La Sorbonne.
“Orthogonal”
“Scholz’s way of being stubborn is to say nothing. Merz, if he is stubborn, we will hear him. He is a little angry,” she points out.
It is generally agreed that the blame is shared in the missed meeting between Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, two polar opposite temperaments, omnipresent for one, silent for the other.
Angela Merkel’s former finance minister arrived at the chancellery with an unenthusiastic view of France and its repeated budgetary slippages.
There are numerous disagreements on the European anti-missile shield project, the delivery of long-range missiles to Ukraine or the implementation of the free trade agreement between the EU and the Mercosur countries, demanded by Berlin against the opinion of Paris.
Emmanuel Macron, who readily poses as leader of the EU, also arouses a lot of incomprehension across the Rhine.
“He has a way of being, of behaving, of making moves, of throwing sentences, of provoking destiny which is orthogonal to what Scholz is,” observes Hélène Miard-Delacroix.
“Some of its decisions, including the dissolution of the Assembly, were not understood, such as the fact that France is literally sitting on the convergence criteria” of the euro zone, adds Hans Stark, advisor for relations Franco-German at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri). Seen from Germany, he comes across as “a very weakened and isolated president”, he adds.
This article was automatically published. Sources: ats / afp
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