“WGallina Gaul and Germany progress, the whole of Europe is progressing. When they didn’t do it, it tries to stop it”, how the former French president Jacques Chirac put it almost a quarter of a century ago in one of the periodic romances between the two largest EU member states.
So what would Chirac, who died in 2019, do to the current condition of the Franco-German aristocracy machine that, since the beginning of the bloc, has prevailed only in the postwar European project? It looks not as shaky as the picture shows.
Emmanuel Macron Friday the new prime ministerhis loyal partner Francis Bayrou, who this year becomes the fourth prime minister of France and will try to assemble a stable business after the government. Collapse last week the country’s shortest administration since 1958
Meanwhile, France’s public sector deficit is on track to exceed 6.1% of GDP this year, more than double the eurozone’s rate; public debt 110% of GDP and rising; and the bond market appreciated this month France as marginally less honorable than Greece.
In Germany, the center-left coalition has been broken for the past three years fell a month Under the weight of its ideological contradictions and the pressure of multiple crises, Russia launched a full invasion of Ukraine.
Whoever becomes chancellor after elections on February 23 will be occupied the world’s worst performing economy surrounded by great energy and labor, both gratuitous and official; crumbling infrastructure and slow digital expansion.
The key trade slowdown with China partner It also had an impact on German exports and traditional strength, as the entire automotive industry became important slow to develop beautiful electric vehicles (EVs) and now the looming threat of US tariffs under Donald Trump.
With France unable to hold new parliamentary elections until July and Germany possibly without a new government until June, the political fever at the top of the EU’s two most influential countries inevitably closes the EU.
Paris and Berlin appear as the core axis of European power, making policy and defining the main policies. With both capitals unable to make large-scale plans due to a lack of firm, stable governments, plans are potentially months in the mud.
The two parallel economic and fiscal evils will also weigh heavily on the EU. Some analysts believe that the scope of the two largest economies – accounting for 41% of the EU member 27’s total GDP – will both contract economically in 2025.
The fear couldn’t be worse, with Europe returning to America’s first policies under another Trump presidency.
German industry (especially) in crisis.
How this was done is not difficult to understand. Figuring out how France and Germany can extricate themselves from their ongoing political and economic spirals, however, is not so easy.
When, last month, he imposed the German government, the spectators were less surprised at his destruction than they were that he had limped along so long.
with Olav Scholzius the chancellor Minister of Finance, Christian LindnerOn November 6, a bitter disagreement over the six-month spending spree set in motion a chain of events that conservatives say will give the country a vital shot at renewal.
“Do we dare to invest strongly in the future of our strongest country? Will we secure jobs and modernize our industry? Do we provide stable pensions, guaranteed care and nursing care? Scholzius said, “I will defy you on Wednesday.”
Lindner left Germany with the tyranny of Scholz’s minority confederation of Social Democrats (SPD) and the Greens ecologist, capable only of perfunctory policy-making from now on until a new government is in place.
On Monday, Scholz, historically unpopular, but still stood by his party candidate for re-electionYou will face a vote of confidence called to trigger new elections.
If Scholz loses the MPs’ votes, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will dissolve parliament and Germany will embark on an intense campaign of truncated public holidays.
A recent poll put the center-right CDU/CSU at 31%, followed by Far Alternative for Germany (AfD) at 18%, Scholz’s SPD at 17% and the Greens at 13%. The FDP and the new leftwing conservatives Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance both scoring around the 5% threshold for parliamentary representation.
Silver is clever and then the leader of Germany is therefore on Frederick Merza long-time rival of the more moderate Christian Democrats Angela Merkel whose 16-year-old chancellor left Merz thinly in the political wilderness.
He used the time to build a small fortune in business, notably with the German multinational investment firm BlackRock. Merz, whose notoriously hot temper has mellowed slightly with age, vowed to pull Germany out of its economic slump while taking a harder line on defense, Russia and migration.
But since Merz’s center-right CDU/CSU alliance, if it comes first, has little chance of taking an outright majority, its choice of coalition partner will inevitably water down its plans for economic reform. All parts of the greater right have worked.
“Germany’s current economic model, in which an abundance of cheap fossil fuels and the production of cars with combustion engines play a central role, already seems obsolete – but politicians rarely dare to say this openly,” said Kai Arzheimer, a political scientist at the University. of Mainz. “I don’t believe there will be at least a real start in the near future.”
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If the new government would turn things around quickly, it is anti-immigration AfD, mainly supported by eastern votersthat which would be most useful.
Ursula Münch, director of the Academy for Political Education thinktank in Bavaria, said that while Merz would partner with the SPD, creating a middle-of-the-road government could be a toxic mix of disappointed hope and disappointment.
“The expectations of the electorate, the corporations and the media are very high – too high,” he said, given the years of persistent structural problems like the one in Germany after the fall. “That would overtax any government.”
But Münch said the emerging consensus that Germany needs to tackle its weaknesses head-on is a compelling mandate to offer a direct chancellor with sufficient will. “I’m going to do that with enough confidence that the Germans can become better again and give more hope to democracy,” he said.
In France today’s political problems – the country is suffering the worst period of volatile world politics since the second war – is largely derived from Macron’s decision to dissolve parliament after the centrist forces were heavily defeated by Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally (RN) in this spring’s European elections.
In the parliamentary elections, the New Popular Front (NFP), a coalition of left-wing parties based on the mainstream Socialist Party (PS) to the far-left France (LFI), led by politicians known as Jean-Luc Mélenchon; won the greatest number of seats
The Macron group was defeated in second place and the RN (although the largest group finished alone) placed third. Parliament was divided into three roughly equal and opposite provinces – the left, the center and the right/far right – none of which, decisively, enjoyed any major parliamentary access.
After weeks of dithering and refusing to name a prime minister from the left, Macron tapped Michel Barnier, a veteran conservative and the EU’s chief Brexit negotiator, aided by a fragile minority of centrist and center-right MPs.
This month, the far right RN combined with the left leaning NFP to . they would throw Barnier’s government into the hands of voters with no confidence over the 2025 economy, which included around €20bn (£16.5bn) in tax increases and €40bn in public road cuts.
Bayrou, his replacement, will try to coalesce a more solid ruling majority, perhaps involving some of the center left – or at least obtain a “non-aggression pact” that would not leave the new government prone to exactly the same threat; unreliable vote supported by both the left and the far right, such as Barnier’s.
But the arithmetic remains the same. Macron “seems ready to build a more stable governing agreement with the Conservatives, Socialists, Communists, and Greens,” who “seem ready to make compromises and avoid another government at the mercy of the RN”; said Rym Momtaz Carnegie Europe thinktank.
“But that’s only a temporary fix. It still doesn’t have a solution, to enjoy the tide of popularity of Le Pen from 2017, and his significant chances of being elected president in 2027.
It is hardly working well in France’s fiscal difficulties, meanwhile the trigger at the end of the government’s collapse was the tightening of the budget belt, the central objective of which was the partial restoration of France’s public finances.
At least, although France seems to have “taught its lesson”, it needs “credible, slow, fiscal tightening”, said economist John Springford of the Center for European Reform. Germany, which needs tax and labor market reforms and public investment to make up spending, has yet to make that step, he said.
From an EU perspective, however, some analysts are cautiously optimistic. “It is a premature decision that France and Germany are down and out,” said Mujtaba Rahman of the Eurasia Group consultancy. “By the middle of next year, we should see a revised Franco-German engine.”
Germany’s election conducted in February was “very positive”, Rahman said: “We will have the most clarity in the year, a more coherent coalition and a more Russia-sceptic chancellor. And Merz and Macron are much more important in all the big questions than Macron and Scholz.
Macron’s domestic woes will not go away overnight. “But there seems to be a sense of national responsibility to form a government, to provide the budget and the minimum stability that France needs – and that Europe needs from France,” he said.
Most importantly, Trump 2.0 “gave weight and credibility to everything Macron said about security, defense and strategic autonomy,” he said. Paris-Berlin will finally be “renewed – and with a new, increased European leader, they will give the best loss of Europe to the worst of what will happen.”