The EconomistSeptember 28th 2019 Europe 51O
n september 26th2017 a freshly elected Emmanuel Macron
gave a speech at the Sorbonne University in Paris. It lasted over
one-and-a-half hours and argued for a hugely more ambitious eu.
Amid poetic overtures about Europe’s common fate was a long list
of proposals to integrate the continent more tightly, in order to
toughen it up for a more demanding world. “European sovereignty
requires constructing, and we must do it,” insisted the new leader.
Yet now, on the speech’s second birthday and as Mr Macron nears
the midpoint of his presidential term, his roster of European
achievements is modest.
The timing was poor. Delivered just after Germany’s federal
election, the speech was meant to inspire the incoming govern-
ment there. Yet the coalition talks dragged on; then the young Ger-
man government was plunged into a squabble about immigration;
then the anti-establishment gilets jaunes(yellow jackets) protes-
ters took to French streets and mired Mr Macron in domestic mat-
ters. His approval ratings have recovered in recent months and
Macroniste minds are once more turning to the European picture.
But timing was not the only problem. Berlin works differently
from Paris; speeches there are not battering-rams but ship’s tillers,
gently adjusting a course. Some German leaders felt ambushed by
the Sorbonne talk. Angela Merkel found it too ambitious (the
chancellor and the president admire each other, but she finds him
cocky and he finds her complacent). French and German officials
can be pessimistic about each other’s countries. In Paris they mut-
ter darkly about Germany’s export-dependent economic model; in
Berlin they fret about the president’s fragile grip on his country.
Proposals to integrate the euro zone were just one part of the
Sorbonne speech, but a crucial one. They have made virtually no
progress. A nascent budget for the monetary union, which Mr
Macron suggested in 2017 should be worth “several” percentage
points of its gdp, will be tiny. A coalition of northern states led by
the Netherlands has bolstered Germany’s opposition to anything
bigger. A single European banking system and a common govern-
ment bond, the best ways to avoid the euro zone’s collapse in a fu-
ture crisis, remain distant prospects. The balance in other areas is
also meagre. Europe still lacks a “common strategic culture” and
member states are generally too divided to talk to their Africanneighbours, let alone China, with a single voice. A “genuine Euro-
pean asylum office” enforcing a common migration regime has
not materialised. The president’s hints at a realignment of Euro-
pean party politics, disrupting the established pan-continental
party groups, has led merely to the rebranding of the existing liber-
al group in the European Parliament after May’s elections.
It is therefore tempting to write off the Sorbonne agenda as a
flight of a fancy by a naïf new president. This would be wrong.
Some of Mr Macron’s aspirations have been realised. A European
Defence Fund is now financing common projects, the euro budget
might yet prove a first step to something bigger, and an array of
smaller initiatives (European university networks, for example)
are in train. One German official claims that Berlin and Paris have
achieved more together in the past two years than during the presi-
dencies of any of Mr Macron’s recent predecessors.
Anyway, it is unfair to judge the president’s ideas after only two
years. His initial priority was to change Europe’s attitudes (its
“software” as they are known in Macron-land) towards how ambi-
tious the bloc can and should be. In Brussels and other capitals this
is obviously under way; even Berlin is now proposing a common
European unemployment reinsurance scheme. Outside events—a
fracturing transatlantic relationship, fears of China, security
threats, a looming slowdown—are helping. The process of trans-
forming Europe, Mr Macron argued at the Sorbonne, should come
during the eu’s 2019-2024 institutional term.
Now that is beginning and his prospects look better. The presi-
dent successfully proposed Ursula von der Leyen, a like-minded
German minister, to lead the incoming European Commission. In
its personnel and its programme her “geopolitical commission”
has a Macroniste flavour. Nathalie Loiseau, the president’s former
Europe minister and now an ally in the European Parliament,
notes that its priorities—such as a more activist industrial strat-
egy, better technology policies and stronger European defence—
echo those of the president. That the president also levered Chris-
tine Lagarde, an economically doveish Frenchwoman, into the
presidency of the European Central Bank also helps him.
Mr Macron has had to adapt. He has discovered that Germany is
a cautious and insufficient ally. So he is building a broader net-
work of friends. At an eusummit in May he advocated a carbon-
neutral eu by 2050 with seven other environmentally minded gov-
ernments. That pushed sceptics like Mrs Merkel to accept the goal
and other member states followed. The president is similarly striv-
ing to build “coalitions of the willing” with Germany and others on
migration; and with the Nordics and central Europeans on de-
fence. He is learning the value of going out on a limb. At the g 7
summit in Biarritz last month he seized the initiative to mediate
between America and Iran. It is less clear that his new quest for a
breakthrough in talks with Russia over Ukraine will succeed.Paris, capitale de l’Europe
The Sorbonne agenda, then, is entering its implementation phase.
Mr Macron wants to persuade the new commission to accelerate
progress on subjects like digital regulation, trade deals, “strategic”
investment in new technologies and co-operation on migration.
The goal is a Europe in 2024 that is more confident, sovereign and
hard-nosed. He will not achieve all, or perhaps even most, of the
ambitions he articulated at the Sorbonne. Even his re-election as
president in 2022, though looking more likely than six months
ago, is far from certain. But he stands a good chance of realising
parts of his vision. That in itself would be an achievement. 7Charlemagne Emmanuel Macron’s long game
The French president’s European strategy enters a new phase