by Paolo Valentino
From defense projects to negotiations with Beijing to gas supplies, the list of reasons for disagreements keeps growing. And worrying
Whenever Helmut Kohl met a leader of the Elysée, he bowed twice to the French flag with military honors. It was a gesture of respect and gratitude made by the German Chancellor in agreement with Paris, the cornerstone of Germany’s post-war European redemption. It’s a gesture that Olaf Scholz, who arrives in the French capital to meet Emmanuel Macron, will not repeat this morning. In truth, neither Gerhard Schröder nor Angela Merkel ever made the double bow to the red-white-blue tricolor. But despite the geopolitical landslides triggered by German reunification, which upset the balance of power between the two countries, the alliance between France and Germany continued to function for thirty years, a key driver of all progress in European integration. Maybe not enough, but absolutely necessary.
No longer. Even if today’s Paris tête-à-tête will end with a ritual commitment to friendship and cooperation, no diplomatic convenience can hide the structural crisis in which Franco-German relations find themselves, a malaise that will upset the balance in the medium term could be in the European Union. Rien ne va plus between Paris and Berlin, even had to cancel the annual government summit in the last few days and postpone it indefinitely due to irreconcilable differences in all dossiers on the agenda.
The list of disagreements keeps growing. Macron is angry about the European missile shield project launched by Germany together with 14 countries and based on German, American and Israeli technologies, the tombstone for the European “strategic autonomy” dear to him. Still on the subject of defence: initial French enthusiasm for the 100 billion that Germany committed to a large-scale rearmament in February is given Berlin’s decisions that the Franco-German or European projects will instead focus on US-made systems concentrate, starting with the F-35. The Elysée boss still considers Olaf Scholz’s decision to go to Beijing in November (accompanied by a crowd of entrepreneurs) to be impolite and ignores his suggestion that they go there together on a European mission.
On the German front, there is great disappointment at Paris’ definitive no to the Midcat pipeline, which was supposed to connect the Spanish gas network to France via the Pyrenees to bring more methane to northern Europe. Berlin also laments the lack of French support for EU expansion towards the Western Balkans, because Paris favors the European political community project christened in Prague on October 6th.
But beyond the individual episodes, the crisis has something deeper and more epochal than what only the French call “le couple,” the couple, while the Germans have forgetfully called Heine and the Romantics “motor.” All company bosses present in September in Evian during the traditional German-French talks were struck by the coldness of Olaf Scholz, not a prime example of empathy and tact, who in his speech did not once speak of an agreement between the two countries and instead emphasized the centrality of Germany , the first power of the new Europe, which also includes Ukraine.
And here we are at the crucial point. Putin’s war of aggression against Kyiv may have changed priorities and balances in Europe forever, beginning to shift its geopolitical center of gravity east and north. Poland, the Baltics and the Nordic countries are also gaining new moral weight after repeated warnings about the threat posed by Putin. With the not-so-close but certain prospect of Ukraine joining the EU, new alliances or even a new bloc are inevitable.
The conflict and its ramifications, particularly in the energy arena, have definitively undermined the mercantilist economic model that Germany has followed, not without selfishness, for the past thirty years, based on cheap Russian energy, robust Chinese demand and market, and US-guaranteed defense. It’s a perfect storm for Berlin, forced to live first, also at the expense of the deal with Paris. The 200 billion euros that the federal government has made available to save expensive energy, which was decided without consultation with the European partners, are proof of this. France, for its part, risks being weakened and crushed on the western flank of Europe and NATO, and, as political scientist Gilles Gressani explains, will be tempted to look around, perhaps to look for Latin options, certainly in Spain, perhaps in Italy. The sentence “It’s not good for Europe if Germany isolates itself” expresses Macron’s concern. But it would certainly be a grave mistake for the unstable and somewhat contentious governing coalition in Berlin to turn its back on Paris altogether, as if it no longer needed it. Even if the new focus is no longer on the Rhine, only together can Germany and France advance integration and counteract any sovereign temptation in Europe.
October 25, 2022 (change October 25, 2022 | 22:03)
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