“I think it’s not good for Germany or for Europe that it isolates itself,” said Emmanuel Macron on his arrival in Brussels for a European summit dedicated to the crisis caused by soaring energy prices. The answers to be given to the energy crisis, to military cooperation, to joint armament projects have revealed dissonances between Paris and Berlin. Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz were to meet before the start of the summit to try to iron out the “differences” between the two countries on how to lower gas and electricity prices.
The accumulated differences between Paris and Berlin led on Wednesday to the postponement until January of the Franco-German Council of Ministers scheduled for October 26 in Fontainebleau, France. Berlin justified the postponement by “logistical difficulties” for certain ministers. But according to several sources, it is indeed the points of friction between Paris and Berlin which have accumulated in connection with the upheavals of the war in Ukraine, which have led to the postponement.
Budgetary rigor: a German double-talk
Paris, like other European capitals, had little taste for the lack of European consultation when Olaf Scholz announced his latest 200 billion euro plan to support businesses and households in the face of inflation. European officials fear EU fragmentation and are rebelling against a supposed German double-talk that would teach lessons in fiscal discipline within the EU while spending lavishly domestically.
The German Greens, including Vice-Chancellor and Energy Minister Robert Habeck, have criticized the failures of the French nuclear program, which would pose a threat to the energy supply of the two countries. Also Berlin, which intended to get out of nuclear power at the end of the year, decided to extend the life of three power stations. If an alternative to the Mitcat project seems to be on the way, frictions are also increasing in the field of defence.
One of the friction points already seems erased. While Berlin pleaded for the revival of a Mitcat gas pipeline project linking Spain to Germany, Spain, Portugal and France agreed on Thursday to replace it with a new gas pipeline to transport gas and green hydrogen between Barcelona and Marseille, announced in Brussels the head of the Spanish government, Pedro Sanchez. “The new project, which will be called the Green Energy Corridor, to connect the Iberian Peninsula to France and therefore to the European energy market between Barcelona and Marseille,” he explained on his arrival for a European summit.
Germany and 14 allies join forces for their anti-aircraft defense, Paris in retreat
Berlin is thus promoting an anti-missile shield project, including an Israeli component, which 14 European countries want to join, including Great Britain, the Baltic countries, the Netherlands and even Finland. Denouncing an “arms race” within the continent, Paris remains in the background. But its own system is already part of the Alliance’s integrated command.
Europe’s future combat aircraft, a sea serpent between the two countries, is another sticking point, with the risk that the competing British project, Tempest, will get ahead.
Added to this is a personal dimension between the leaders of the two countries, according to Jacques-Pierre Gougeon: “They have very different temperaments, not the same political background. (Olaf) Scholz is less in communication and must take his partners into account” in a tripartite coalition that is particularly difficult to lead.
The Mayor: “The idea of a Europe built for peace” is obsolete
According to the Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire, the dissensions come from reasons “which upset the German model”. First of all the war in Ukraine which makes “obsolete the idea of a Europe built for peace” and which “must now be there to guarantee security against foreign aggressors”.
“This should lead us to a strategic redefinition of relations between France and Germany. And to create a new alliance, perhaps even stronger”, affirmed the minister. This fervent Germanophile, however, recalled that there was “no alternative to this close relationship between France and Germany”.