This year was key in the re-foundation of Europe, which proposed to Macron, because Germany and France had Governments at the beginning of its journey, there was no great electoral appointment (aside from the windfall of Italy) and the good economic situation allowed it to strengthen the club. The horizon seemed propitious with a view to the European Parliament elections in may 2019.
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Of the ‘grandeur’ of the ashes
But 2018 ends with a chancellor in retreat, a French president is cornered and the main reforms bogged down and at risk of collapse after the elections in europe. The train euroentusiasta Macron has long passed. And in Brussels there is a feeling that can take months or years to get back.
Macron aspired to nothing less than « the restructuring of a European sovereign, united and democratic », as proclaimed in a speech at the University of the Sorbonne in Paris. The plan included, among other things, a European defence for the autonomy of the united STATES, a Europe of security in order to counter international terrorism and to solidify the borders against illegal immigration, a euro-area budget, and Parliament itself.
Are big ambitions. But the balance of the five months of the may elections, is a front of pro-europe in disarray and its leader French slope of a rear, where it has erupted, the revolt of the yellow vests. The rivals of Macron has always been, on the contrary, gain ground, since the eurorreticentes under the banner of the call Hanseatic League (the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) until the eurófobos of the Italian Matteo Salvini and france’s Marine Le Pen.
Treatment broken
After winning the presidential elections in 2017, Macron offered a deal more or less tacit to Germany. Paris would respect eu rules on deficit and impose to France in structural reforms, postponed for years. In exchange, Germany would help Macron in your project in order to strengthen the integration of Europe. But the deal has been shattered.
the great reforms of The speech of The Sorbonne sound more to chimera, to project realizable in the next few months. On the economic front, « the litmus test will come with the next crisis, » warns Lucas Guttenberg, deputy director of the institute Jacques Delors from Berlin. « It is clear that the euro zone is not well prepared and that we will have to build again an ad hoc solution. We have lost the opportunity to do it well », he shoots Guttenberg.
In defence policy has been more advanced, but because the starting point was infinitely less than in the economic area. And the migration policy also has been stranded, by the resistance of the countries of the East to the quotas of distribution of refugees and for the countries of the south, including Spain, to cede powers of surveillance to a future guard european borders. »In this issue [of control of the borders], as I begin to lose patience, » admitted the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, last Friday after the latest european summit in Brussels.
The missed opportunity in 2018 is of such magnitude that it has already triggered the search for responsible. The European Commission is to wash hands because it has submitted the bills claimed in all areas (economy, migration, defense,…).
With Brussels out of the stage, heads turn toward Berlin and Paris, where he started a rain of reproaches crusaders, who will be predictably more as we approach the may elections, in which the Government parties of Merkel (conservatives of the CDU/CSU and social democrats of the SPD) will be rivals of the liberals Macron.
The exasperation is evident in both parties. In Paris, especially in the Department of the Finance minister, Bruno Le Maire, the impatience is evident. In the past year and a half since the Macron is president, Merkel has been reluctant to join the proposals of France. The weakness of the two major parties in Germany (CDU and SPD) and the limited appetite to invest political capital in european projects has made Berlin drag their feet when providing a response to the ambitious plans French.
In Berlin, the reaction of Macron before the revolt of the yellow vests, which has led him to question some of the promised reforms and to announce a public spending that will trigger the public deficit is above the european limit of 3%, now offers the ideal excuse or an alibi for those who do not want to embark on adventures of further european integration.
The German Government did not even already have to bother to say nein as in the time of Sarkozy or Hollande. The netherlands and Hanseatic League have assumed willingly the task of slow or block projects that disturb in Germany, especially in the tough wing of the CDU and of their co-religionists bavarian CSU.
The euroentusiastas believe that Merkel will throw the rest in favour of the EU once it has announced its withdrawal from politics in 2022. « But its power to approve reforms in the Bundestag [German Parliament] has not increased, » warns Guttenberg. Rather, it has diminished because it has lost control of the parliamentary group of the CDU, dominated by supporters reject the proposals of Macron. « [The chancellor] can’t ignore our position, » warns a source of this group, in allusion to the need for the Bundestag to approve the major financial reforms that Merkel may agree at the european level.
The margin of manoeuvre of the French president has also been reduced, accused of arrogance within and outside its borders. His speech, « first class » as he defines his friend and ally, the Green Daniel Cohn-Bendit, has raised many suspicions. « Macron has been too impetuous, » criticizes a source community in Brussels. « His attitude has been perceived in some capitals as overly aggressive and has at times been counter-productive, because it has put many Governments on the defensive, » adds the source. In several capitals, from Berlin to The Hague, is accused of Macron, in addition, have been involved in the blue flag of the EU for not to notice that France continues to advocate in Brussels the same thesis that is always on economic policy, foreign and social. « The goal is the same: to bring Germany and Europe to the French model… but now they call it european », satirizes a diplomat community.
Berlin ran out of time without finish the counteroffer to Paris
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, has launched its proposals to reform Europe and waited patiently for the German chancellor, Angela Merkel held their elections in September of 2017 to receive a response. But Germany has experienced in the last year and a medior political convulsions for those latitudes. And the instability in Berlin has mutated into a form of paralysis for the rest of the EU. The highest counter offer of Merkel arrived in June 2018, with Goldenbahis a declaration of franco-German Meseberg in which the chancellor admitted for the first time the creation of a budget for the euro area and the fixing of a calendar for completing the Banking Union. Just then, the outbreak of the dispute of Merkel with his minister and leader of the bavarians, Horst Seehofer, on account of the migration policy. Merkel held the rebellion. But in September he lost control of the parliamentary group, which passed into the hands of the eurorreticente Ralph Brinkhaus. Shortly after, the chancellor announced that he will not seek re-election after this term. Merkel became the past. Almost as much as the plan euroentusiasta Macron.