A wound in your heart that festered at the worst moment European Union. decision The postponement of the Franco-German council of ministers on October 26 crystallized the existing tensions between the two countries. Germany Y France. Relations between the two main powers of the EU – the king and lady of society project – are not having their best moments. Their embedded differences have already existed for years, but the war and energy crisis in Ukraine have only highlighted them. Since Jacques Chirac Y Gerhard Schroder In 2003 the Franco-German ministerial councils were promoted, nothing like this year when this important meeting was postponed three times is remembered. It will eventually be held in 2023.
“I think it is not good for a country to isolate itself. (…) Our role is to do everything possible so that European Union and Germany is part of it,” said the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the Thursday before the start of the Council of Europe. “It is clear that Germany has always acted very supportively.Foreign Minister Olaf Scholz, who has been reproaching him for weeks for his European counterparts, including Macron, for the 200,000m-euro bailout plan in response to the energy crisis, responded. A measure that could disrupt the common market.
“They don’t have the same preferences”
The centrist president and social democratic chancellor tried to resolve these differences by holding a face-to-face meeting in Brussels, and they will repeat this every day. next wednesday in paris. The “roadmap” agreed upon in the Council of Europe to stop the energy price spiral is that, although the differences are fruitful, both energy, defense and economy.
“These divergent interests, hidden for years, have now crystallized in a time of great crisis (war in Ukraine and energy inflation) in which the two main European partners are involved. they don’t have the same preferences“, explained in statements to El Periódico de Catalunya of the Prensa Ibérica group, to David Cayla, economist specializing in European affairs. According to this professor at the University of Angers, “the existing differences are much more important.” occurred during the binomial Merkel-Macron, marked by some dialectical crossroads on the creation of a budget.
Contrasting energy strategies
France and Germany have almost opposite energy strategies: nuclear energy, the latter accelerated the release of atomic energy in exchange for increasing its dependence on Russian gas. Recently, They had already failed to agree on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. And they did so for economic and strategic reasons, not because of the need to stop being dependent on gas from Putin’s Russia.
Paris and Berlin have been disagreeing for months over measures to reduce energy inflation. Macron insisted on convenience community gas purchases. It also commits to expanding to include the rest of the EU. Iberian mechanism It is the unbundling of the electricity price to gas, which allows Spain to enjoy a significantly lower electricity cost than Germany or France at the moment. But the German Government, along with its usual northern allies, blocked these proposals for months.
After months of contention, Germany seems to have given up a bit. The “roadmap” adopted by the 27 on Friday includes Europe’s “voluntary” gas purchases and “temporary” mechanism to separate the price of electricity from gas. However, a small part of these measures will need to be discussed in the coming months and negotiations are expected to be tense. Another dossier that pitted Berlin against Paris this week resulted in: medium cat. Eventually, the gas pipeline through the Pyrenees went into the dustbin of history and was replaced by the underwater pipeline between Barcelona and Marseille. A project that Germany is not associated with at the moment.
Discord’s Missile Shield
In addition to energy, the differences between the French and German governments are also great in military matters. In the high spheres of France, they disliked by a hair the announcement of Germany to create a missile defense shield with 14 other NATO countries, among which France did not include and developed with American and Israeli military technology. Cayla recalls, “French leaders have a feeling that the Germans are not cooperating with the “Europe of Defence.” He gives as an example the current tensions in the development of the state. European fighter aircraft (SCAF) and the tank of the future.
All of these frictions come in a year marked by increasing weight in the EU. East and for the return american hegemony On the Old Continent. France and Germany seemed to be lagging behind, while Poland and its Baltic partners frequently opened fire, especially on measures to counter Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. An incipient decline highlighted by the internal divisions of the Franco-German axis.