Macron’s Merkel strategy hasn’t worked

Emmanuel Macron swept to power in 2017 on a pro-EU, anti-far right ticket, determined to reshape the bloc in his image with the help of Germany’s Angela Merkel.
But his early ambition to deepen Europe’s ties in a host of areas – including a common budget for the euro zone – was soon replaced by fudge and vague promises, as Merkel’s support cooled and backing didn’t materialise from other EU states. Attempts to use the Franco-German relationship as the bedrock of a unified Europe have been overtaken by the obvious divides between Berlin and Paris. These have ranged from how to manage Brexit to how to respond
to Donald Trump’s trade threats and how to improve the common currency.
Macron acknowledged disagreements with Berlin in a speech and even took aim at Germany’s flagging economy.
Some of these differences are decades old, of course. France’s high-spending, high-taxing dirigisme has clashed frequently with Germany’s commitment to austerity, structural reform and having the rest of the euro zone follow its lead. Politically, too, the countries are at different ends of the federalist spectrum. France pushes for European integration, and Germany asks its neighbour to put its economic house in order first.
Still, Macron hasn’t helped matters. Whether by tactical error or political naivety, the 41-year-old banker’s focus on Merkel has made a difficult job even harder. Engineering a shift of this magnitude within German politics demands more than just the assent of the Chancellor; the country has a long history of coalition governments, its biggest parties are under new leadership and the public is hostile to bailouts and burden-sharing with spendthrift EU partners. A former adviser to Macron, Shahin Vallee, has lamented the Elysee Palace’s obsession with Germany’s “boss.”
This evidence of president’s political flaws won’t be a surprise to many in France, where his “Jupiterian” distance from lawmakers and officials lower down food chain was part of the reason why he and his team failed to see the gilets jaunes coming. In Germany, any political points that he scored with his fellow titan Merkel haven’t flowed down from the top as hoped, simply because that isn’t how the system works there. The reaction from Merkel’s own conservative bloc to 2018 Meseberg Declaration – the Franco-German partnership aimed at reinvigorating the EU project – was highly critical, despite all of its compromises and omissions.
Macron’s shift to a much more strident tone against Germany is a recognition that his domestic difficulties are paramount right now, especially with his campaign for May’s European parliamentary elections not going well. His pitch to quell the Gilets Jaunes has been to splash out out 15 billion euros in handouts and tax cuts and to promise a Europe that “protects.”
There’s nothing wrong with squaring up to Germany in theory, given that country’s need to re-balance its economy and ease its attachment to savings. But, as the Germans themselves might say, it will be easier to do if Macron puts France on a more equal footing first.
—Bloomberg

Lionel Laurent is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Brussels. He previously worked at Reuters and Forbes