Germany, the economic powerhouse of the European Union, is struggling: slowdown of activity, minimal growth, job losses (particularly in the country’s highly symbolic automotive sector), concerns over exports, competition from China, industrial sector struggling to bounce back. Its capacity to bring the neighbouring economies with it in its wake is falling. On top of this poor economic situation, the country is experiencing a political crisis that has been many months in the making. The Liberal party (FDP), member of the federal government, has been losing regional elections one by one and is fighting for its life. Then, the victors of the European elections were the two opposition parties: the Christian Democrats (CDU) followed by the highly radical far-right party, AfD.
Consensus within government on ways to improve the economic situation grew weaker. By early November, the gulfs were growing wider. The Social Democrats (SPD) and Greens were standing by their social and climate priorities. FDP, the third partner, was calling for a truly Liberal approach, to avoid both recession and public indebtedness, which would have involved abandoning a number of the constraints under the ‘European Green Pact’. Their leader, finance minister Christian Lindner, leaked a note to this effect: it was one conflict too far in the view of Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who sacked Lindner over this breach of trust. All the other Liberal ministers resigned en masse.
The government, now reduced to an alliance between the Social Democrats and Greens, now had a minority in the Bundestag. Along the opposition seats, the Christian Democrats (CDU) called successfully for early elections, to be held at the first possible date: they will therefore take place on 23 February 2025.
Unlike Germany, France has an enormous public deficit, although its performance in terms of employment remains healthy. It was in the framework of the national political crisis that the country’s indebted was revealed in its true extent. With one eye on the verdict of the ratings agencies, the government’s priority is to rebalance the public debt, with a budgetary trajectory and the dual foundation of new taxes and, more importantly, wide-ranging spending cuts. European Commission approved the plan on 26 November (see EUROPE 13532/11).
In France, the far right (Rassemblement national, RN) has grown even stronger than in Germany, with its very clear victory in the European elections, which had been presented as a referendum on the President of the Republic. That gentleman has certainly made a series of somewhat bizarre decisions. In January, Emmanuel Macron decided that his head of government, Élisabeth Borne, who had done nothing to deserve it, would not see the second anniversary of her term in office. The position of Prime Minister protects the President and is therefore commonly described as a ‘political fuse’, to be tripped when the circumstances so demand – but circumstances had not so demanded. Then, Macron failed to find a political figure strong enough to lead the presidential party: failure was written in the stars. The new Prime Minister, Gabriel Attal, brought all his rhetorical skills to bear to save the situation. However, on 9 June, before the ink was dry on the results of the elections, he discovered that the President had decided to dissolve the Assemblée nationale, without doing him the courtesy of giving him a heads-up ― as Macron was no longer able to use the ‘political fuse’ tactic, as this card had already been played.
Another, far more decisive election campaign was needed urgently. The RN was forecast to come to power, but in a collective response, the French barred the door to them, bringing home the coalition of the Left, made up of extremists and moderates. The president’s party came in second place, the far right third. Macron lost not only the support of those of his MPs who kept their seats, but also that of Attal and, critically, that of many French citizens. Elsewhere in Europe, Berlin in particular, the dissolution was felt to be somewhat irresponsible, seen as just another of the Prince’s caprices. Following a long waiting period, coinciding with the Olympic Games, the President refused to allow the winning coalition its chance to govern and fell back on the more traditional, but less representative, right-wing formation. Michel Barnier moved into the official residence of the Prime Minister, the Matignon. The President’s popularity fell even further: 16% of the public favourable to him and 32% for Barnier, now at the mercy of a vote of no-confidence between the extremes of Right and Left.
In Germany, opinion polls show the situation to be hardly any brighter: the coalition government lost ground and Scholz is more unpopular than any of his predecessors in the Chancellery, to the extent that there were plans afoot in his own party, the SPD, to get rid of him, installing instead Defence Minister Boris Pistorius, who came out the favourite in the opinion polls. Pistorius refused, however, to ‘kill’ his master. For the purposes of the conduct of its campaign, the SPD backed Scholz, who is working hard to regain the ground he has lost and win the forthcoming elections. This is evidently also the aim of the CDU, which has the wind in its sails and its networks activating as far as the European Parliament. If the SPD is successful in its damage limitation exercises, the most likely outcome is a grand coalition (CDU and SPD). However, the French government may have fallen by next February, while the President of the Republic cannot dissolve the National Assembly until June; that would be one hell of a gap.
All these trials and tribulations are not without their repercussions throughout the EU, particularly the European Council, where the two countries in question outweigh many configurations of other members. The leaders of Italy, Poland and Spain (to limit ourselves to the largest countries) automatically enjoy greater weight, on the basis of their parliamentary and popular support. All of this would be anecdotal were it not for the critical series of events of the moment, with the repeated SOS calls from Ukraine, the deadly conflict getting out of hand in the Middle East, the inauguration of the new European Commission and, very soon, the arrival in the White House of Donald Trump. The situation would be less worrying if the two countries in question were not Germany and France which, taken together, are considered Europe’s ‘engine’. They well deserve their reputation; anybody knows even a little bit about history will be aware that all major progress made by the EU was inspired by the pair, acting together. Neither the Visegrád group, Benelux nor the Scandinavian countries are in a position to take over that role.
Having examined the national contexts of both countries, the state of health of the Franco-German partnership deserves a closer look. We cannot deny that the quality of the relationship between the leaders has been important historically. With Adenauer and de Gaulle, Schmidt and Giscard d’Estaing, Kohl and Mitterrand, there was friendship and therefore political fecundity. Between Brandt and Pompidou, Schröder and Chirac, relations were frosty. Merkel worked with three French Presidents with very different styles: Sarkozy, Hollande and Macron. With the first, she developed the Budgetary Pact, with the second, the rescue of Greece and the Minsk agreements with third, the Treaty of Aachen and Germany’s return to the top rank of the European Commission. Her solidarity with Hollande was never stronger than when the horrific Paris attacks took place. She rejected Macron’s proposal to create a special budget for the Eurozone. Later, however, he convinced her to borrow 750 billion euros to relaunch the economy flattened by the pandemic: this was an example of the ‘engine’.
Scholz and Macron have been getting to know each other since December 2021. In its programme, the new German government is so pro-European as to be talking about advancing towards a European federal state. This seems to tie into Macron’s project of strategic autonomy for Europe. However, the French President should have pushed harder to bring to fruition his idea of a Conference on the Future of Europe. Citizens’ panels will see the light of day, but their effectiveness will differ enormously between member states. At the end of the conference, under the French Presidency of the Council the EU (May 2022), the European Parliament, singing from the same hymn sheet as Macron, called for an intergovernmental conference to revise the Lisbon treaty. The Council would not hear of this, Germany appeared to have no strong views either way. However, a Franco-German working group on institutional EU reforms produced a very substantial report, published in September 2023 (see EUROPE 13253/23), which remains a reference, but contains the wording ‘the opinions expressed are not necessarily the official position of the French or German authorities’. So where is it going?
The return of war to Europe has not made things any easier. While Macron has made numerous appeals to Putin, Scholz hesitated over the embargo on Russian gas or the supply of heavy weaponry to Ukraine. Then, solidarity shone through and the Union was almost unanimous. Within the EU, today, Germany is at the top of the leaderboard of aid to Ukraine, with France in fifth place, according to a report by the KIEL Institute. Yet the Chancellor would campaign for peace (a theme close to the heart of the SPD); his recent refusal to send Taurus missiles to Ukraine is indicative of this. During this period, President Macron was more generous in strategic and geopolitical considerations. As for preparations for war proper, an East-West divide is, fairly logically, opening up and does not transcend the Franco-German axis.
Since the tragedy of war in the Middle East broke out, intra-European divisions have become entrenched. Paris is more open to the Palestinian demands, Berlin supports Israel tooth and nail. Europe is powerless to produce a coherent peace plan.
As for the ‘European Green Pact’, which has the support of both partners, this is not enough to overcome their differences over resources, particularly on the use of nuclear. And on matters such as postponing the ‘green car’ or legislation on deforestation, pressure is coming mainly from the German side of the Rhine. Ultimately, whatever the issue, the voting at the Council of the EU and the European Parliament alike do not suggest a strong Franco-German relationship.
It has to be said that the differences between the constitutional systems of the two countries may, under certain circumstances, become a serious stumbling block to the pair, as may Germany’s geographical proximity to Russia. Even so, contact remains strong. In 2022, the newly re-elected Macron reached out to Berlin. In October 2023, he was received by Scholz in Hamburg. May 2024 saw a grand state visit to Germany, renewing ties with the President of the Republic, Frank-Walter Steinmeier. He was present in Ouradour sur Glane on 9 June. Macron and Scholz continued their discussion in Meseberg on 28 May, on the sidelines of the NATO summit on 10 July, in Evian on 6 September (Franco-German meetings), in Berlin on 2 October and again on 18 October, together with Biden and Starmer. Furthermore, the various ministers, particularly the defence ministers, are in constant contact.
The two leaders are doing their best to understand each other’s point of view, but are notoriously hobbled. This is undoubtedly the first time that we are seeing the simultaneous weakening of central power in both countries. This situation obviously comes at a price, which is difficult to estimate other than that it will be high. This does not mean that there is no good to be had out of the relationship. The problem is that there is nothing new to be had from it. Like others, they are placing the emphasis on the hot topic of the moment, competitiveness. Adieu to the common project to bring together a divided and weakened Europe! Auf Wiedersehen to their imaginative courage in the teeth of the centrifugal forces of Trump and Putin!
In 1988, Paolo Cecchini published a famous study entitled ‘Le coût de la non Europe’ [The Cost of Non-Europe’, which served as a strong argument to relaunch the single market. A word to the wise: there should be an analysis of the cost of the enfeeblement of Franco-German political muscle.
Renaud Denuit