The Macron-Scholz dilemma
Emmanuel Macron welcomes Olaf Scholz to the Élysée Palace
Source: dpa
At the meeting with the French President, Olaf Scholz committed himself to reforming the EU. But a European debt union remains taboo for him. On another topic, the SPD candidate is getting closer to the French – despite possible future coalitions.
Et is a beautiful Parisian ritual, but only one for guests of state: red carpet, greeting on the steps of the Elysée Palace, gestures near Emmanuel Macron. Election campaigner Olaf Scholz is still not entitled to the large protocol.
The SPD candidate for chancellor had to be content with a lonely smile on Monday during his several-hour visit to the French capital before he was received by the French president far away from the cameras.
Olaf Scholz visits the Élysée Palace
Source: dpa
Nevertheless, the visit to Paris gives the German election campaign an unusually European dimension. The fact that Scholz is the first to be received by Macron may be a coincidence of the calendar, even if political coffee grounds readers may see it as a secret sign of preference: Armin Laschet’s turn is only on Wednesday.
The election campaign team of the Greens has not yet tried to make an appointment in Paris for Annalena Baerbock. When asked during a televised debate at the end of June where her first journey as Chancellor would lead, she answered spontaneously: Brussels. Scholz, on the other hand, said without hesitation: “To Paris.” That is a good tradition: “Franco-German cooperation is central to ensuring that we can move Europe forward and achieve European sovereignty.”
Scholz as the French’s preferred partner?
The announcement could hardly be clearer. The conversation with Macron was also about European sovereignty, said Scholz during a brief press appearance on the roof terrace of the German Embassy in front of the postcard backdrop of the Eiffel Tower. It is the term Macron introduced in his Sorbonne speech. Scholz leaves no doubt that in him Macron has found a potential ally for the reform of the EU who, like the Frenchman, is convinced that Europe can only assert itself together.
There is much speculation in Germany about whom Macron prefers. In the French media, Laschet was occasionally hailed as the ideal Paris partner. But since his shares began to fall, Scholz has played this role perfectly. If you ask the SPD candidate whether he is the Frenchman’s preferred partner, he smiles away the answer elegantly.
But a look at his party’s election campaign program reveals that the two are in agreement on many issues. The Franco-German historian Johann Chapoutot puts it this way: “Scholz is clearly a middle-class man” – like Macron. In the eyes of the French, the SPD man stands for continuity, if not for something more than that: for Merkel without her flaws, for pragmatism without stubbornness.
The Germans give in to the EU rescue fund
Together with Scholz, France’s Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire set up the EU’s joint reconstruction fund. However, the conditions for joint debt were created long before the Corona crisis in summer 2018 at the Franco-German summit in Meseberg. At that time there was no agreement on the size of a separate EU budget.
Without the preparatory work by “Bruno” and “Olaf”, as they comradely call each other in joint interviews, the rescue fund would have been a much more complicated process. Above all, however, it marks the Germans’ buckling. In retrospect, Le Maire spoke of a “historic agreement”, while his German counterpart assessed it as a “new phase of European integration”. Has joint borrowing set a precedent? In Paris, Scholz now assures that new rules for a future debt union are not possible with him.
As a potential successor to Merkel, he also wants to show more courage in questions of foreign and security policy: Germany cannot always stand by and only comment. Even if Scholz emphasizes the importance of NATO and the transatlantic partnership, he also speaks of the “strategic autonomy” that is so important to the French. But how does Scholz want to advance this with a left-wing SPD party leadership?
And what if there is a red-green-red coalition with the anti-NATO left party? Scholz did not answer these questions in Paris either. He wants to convey the feeling that whoever votes for Scholz also gets Scholz and suggests that he is ruling out a coalition with the left. But he also avoided clear words on this in Paris.
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