Paris At the beginning of September, the business elite from Germany and France gathered in the French Alpine town of Évian. The exclusive get-together at the Grand Hotel Royal d’Evian-les-Bains has a long tradition: since 1992, CEOs have been discussing the business situation in the two closely linked economies here against the backdrop of Lake Geneva.
Political celebrities are also invited: French President Emmanuel Macron came to the meeting. Olaf Scholz also traveled to the town on the French border with Switzerland. In his speech, the Chancellor spoke a lot about Germany, hardly about France and even less about Franco-German cooperation, participants said.
From the German side it was said that Scholz had received positive feedback for his presentation. One was amazed at the criticism of the Chancellor’s appearance in Évian.
The criticism of Germany and Scholz has been going on in Paris for weeks. His appearance in Évian is symbolic of the behavior of a German head of government who is increasingly relying on a “Germany-first policy” in the EU and in relation to France. France is frustrated and disappointed in the Chancellor.
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After the remarkable rejection of the Franco-German Council of Ministers, Scholz is expected to have clarifying talks with Macron at the Élysée Palace this Wednesday. The fact that a press conference originally announced by the federal government does not take place indicates how great the need for clarification is. It seems as if Scholz and Macron no longer dared to be in front of the cameras together so as not to make the differences between the two governments appear even more obvious.
Even after bilateral talks at the end of last week on the sidelines of the EU summit in Prague, the Élysée Palace only sent out a dry statement. Scholz and Macron agreed to “encourage discussions between French and German ministers to continue so that the next Franco-German Council of Ministers can be as substantial and ambitious as possible.”
A new date in January is under discussion. The Council of Ministers is an expression of the special relationship between Germany and France. The Aachen Cooperation Agreement stipulates that the cabinets of both countries meet “at least once a year”.
>> Read here: Macron warns the federal government against isolation
The Council of Ministers last took place in 2019. In 2020 it was canceled due to the pandemic and in 2021 there was a video conference. Wednesday’s meeting has been canceled amid differences over a number of policy issues. Now Scholz comes alone to settle the dispute.
Close coordination between Berlin and Paris at the European level has been replaced by passive-aggressive communication and political tit-for-tat. Macron recently announced in Prague, together with the heads of government of Spain and Portugal, plans for a pipeline from Barcelona to Marseille. According to the communiqué, this would eventually deliver green hydrogen to the north of the EU – and only “limited amounts of natural gas, a temporary transitional energy”.
Dispute over Pyrenees pipeline
With this, the French President booted out the federal government. In the past few months, she had campaigned for a resumption of the Midcat pipeline project from Spain through the Pyrenees to France.
Berlin also argued that this is a future transport route for green hydrogen. But this source of energy is still a thing of the future. In the short term, the Germans wanted a new natural gas delivery route to replace the missing Russian gas.
Macron locked himself against Midcat. Scholz sought to close ranks with Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez against the French. The chancellor was then caught off guard by the volte of the Madrid government. France did not consider it necessary to involve the federal government in the Mediterranean pipeline to Marseille.
At the last summit, the three agreed on a new joint pipeline project, without Germany.
(Photo: IMAGO/Agencia EFE)
The surprise in the French government was similarly great when Scholz proposed a new European air defense system in a keynote speech on the future of the EU at the end of August. Paris felt it was a provocation that the federal government pushed ahead with the plan without France’s participation, but brought the UK, who had left the EU, on board. In addition, the group wants to buy missile defense technology from Israel and the United States.
Joint armament projects falter
In Paris, the “European Sky Shield Initiative” was taken as a sign that the federal government was putting the joint armament projects with France at the back of its “turning point”. The French had previously been annoyed that the 100 billion euros from the special fund for the Bundeswehr would be used to purchase fighter jets and other armaments from the United States.
With a view to the German procurement strategy, Macron had already warned in the spring: A European defense community based on armaments imports “makes no sense”. The French side was under the impression that the President’s calls for “European sovereignty” were being ignored on the German side.
The Franco-German projects, above all the development of the joint air combat system FCAS, are meanwhile stalling. Statements made by the Inspector General of the German Armed Forces, Eberhard Zorn, on European armaments cooperation were also noted in Paris.
Zorn said at a panel discussion in September that the group wanted “things that fly, that drive and that are on the market”. In plain language: They don’t want to wait for the Franco-German weapon systems.
>> Read here: “We waited for the Germans, but it got more and more silly”: France leaves the Energy Charter
The disappointment with Scholz in Paris is also so great because the SPD politician’s candidacy for chancellor was viewed benevolently. In a television debate in the summer of 2021, when asked where his first trip abroad would go, unlike the Green Annalena Baerbock and the Union candidate Armin Laschet, he gave the clear answer: “To Paris.”
From the French point of view, Scholz was the most familiar of the three candidates for chancellor. As Finance Minister, he worked closely with his French colleague Bruno Le Maire on the EU recovery fund in the corona crisis and on the global minimum tax for companies. Now his sensitivity to Franco-German cooperation is in question.
Macron promotes a European approach
A number of conflicts have accumulated in Franco-German relations in recent months. Complaints can be heard from various quarters in Paris that Berlin is “doing its own thing”. German resistance to a gas price cap at EU level and the federal government’s planned 200 billion relief package in the energy crisis caused resentment.
The reproach? Germany gives its industry a competitive advantage with money that other EU countries do not have. Coordinated European action to protect companies from high energy prices would have been better.
The President warned Germany against isolating itself in the EU.
(Photo: IMAGO/Le Pictorium)
Trouble is also brewing in China policy. The newspaper “Le Monde” reported that Macron would have liked to go to China with Scholz as a sign of European unity. But the Chancellor will travel to Beijing with a German business delegation.
Paris worries that Berlin hasn’t learned the lessons of its dependence on Russian gas and may continue to accept its economy’s dependence on China instead of more European autonomy.
In a recent interview with the newspaper Les Echos, Macron commented in principle on the course taken by his neighbor: “Germany is experiencing a moment of change in its model, the destabilizing nature of which should not be underestimated,” he said. “But if we want to be coherent, we have to give ourselves a European strategy and not national strategies.”
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