NO IRON LADY, NO DE GAULLE

On November 10, 2018, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron joined hands to lay a wreath to the new memorial plate near Compiegne, France where Germany admitted defeat on November 11, 1918 and then Hitler forced France to do the same in 1940. The plate has the following words engraved on it: “On the occasion of the centenary of the November 11, 1918 armistice, Mr. Emmanuel Macron, President of the Republic of France, and Mrs. Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, here reaffirmed the value of Franco-German reconciliation for the good of Europe and peace.”

This symbolic gesture demonstrated not only the friendly relations between both leaders but also an understanding that they are responsible for the fate of Europe and the world.

Towards the evening of the same day, the heads of more than sixty countries joined the celebrations to mark the end of the World War I, including the US President Donald Trump, who was not shy about voicing his dissatisfaction with Macron's call for the creation of a pan-European army to protect against the US, Russia and China, as soon as he landed and met with his French counterpart.

Pan-European ideas

Incidentally, this is not the only Pan-European initiative of Macron. Since the first days of his presidency, he has put forward a number of ideas on reforming the economic, financial, legal, defence, law enforcement and other institutions of the European Union to make it resilient to crises.

The most popular proposals of the French President include the creation of a post for an EU finance minister, as well as the establishment of a joint Eurozone budget and a body tasked with overseeing bloc-wide economic policy. These large-scale and radically innovative proposals have spurred disputes since the summer of 2017.

Main opponents of these proposals are the Baltic countries and the Visegrad Four, which are afraid that they would further strengthen the positions of the developed countries in the EU.

However, much depends on the decision of Germany, the main donor and driving force of the EU. For many years, German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been the indisputable authority of global significance and she has seemed to be in control in her own country. However, since September 2017, after a noticeable loss of votes in the parliamentary elections, and a prolonged delay in the negotiations on establishing a ruling coalition with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), rumours about the end of the 'Merkel era' have gathered momentum in Europe.

In fact, Merkel began to lose her political influence a little earlier, when she declared the 'open door policy' in 2015 allowing uncontrolled flows of refugees from Africa and the Middle East to rush into Europe. This provoked a sharp rise in nationalist sentiments in Germany and in many European countries. Having failed to ensure the solidarity among the EU states on migration policy, which assumed mandatory quotas in the refugee relocation program, Merkel had to agree to close the EU borders and create transit centres for refugees in North Africa and Turkey.

Since last autumn, Frau Merkel has been searching for compromises with her party members in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), partners in the Christian Social Union (CSU), as well as with the SPD partners in the ruling coalition. Laborious and complex, this process takes a lot of efforts and time to make bloc-wide decisions on migration policy, Brexit, Eurozone reforms and many other important issues so vital for Europe.

The situation became even more complicated when the ruling coalition of CDU, CSU and SPD began to lose their share during the local elections. This was particularly noticeable in Bavaria and Hesse, the federal state hosting the financial centre of Germany, Frankfurt am Main. The steady decline in the CDU rating forced Merkel to announce in early November her decision to leave the party chair, which she has occupied since 2000.

As a German Chancellor, Merkel can seriously influence the election of the next chairman scheduled for December 8, 2018. There are three favourites, but only one of them, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the incumbent General Secretary of the CDU, who has been jokingly called 'an upgraded copy of Merkel' in Deutsche Welle, is considered a full-fledged ally of Merkel. If elected, Angela Merkel will have a chance to stay in office until the new parliamentary elections in 2021.

If elected, the other two candidates, German Minister of Health, Jens Spahn, often criticising the Chancellor for her leadership style and migration policy, and the former chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary faction, Friedrich Merz, whom Merkel once pushed into the shadows during her career rise, can take up the issue of Merkel's retirement.

In principle, German laws do not prohibit leading a government without being the head of the ruling party. Helmut Schmidt, for example, has served as a chancellor for two terms but none of them as the chairman of the SPD.

There is another internal threat to political stability in Germany. SPD may withdraw from the coalition at any time as long as its members associate the rapid loss of the party's popularity in Germany with secondary positions in the coalition government. Recent public opinion polls show that only 14% of the population support Social Democrats (24% supports the CDU / CSU block, which is also a very low result). But a year ago, when the SPD received 20.5% of the votes in the parliamentary elections, it was already considered a disaster.

EU elections

In fact, the ruling coalition led by Merkel has the support of only 38% of the German population. Realising her weak position, the Chancellor is trying to strengthen Germany's position in the EU leadership, which was not necessary before, given her personal international political weight.

Re-elections of the presidents of the European Council and European Commission, as well as the president of the European Central Bank (ECB) and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy are scheduled for May 2019. According to sources in the German government, Handelsblatt reports that the German Chancellor would like to see a German representative as the next chairman of the European Commission. To achieve this, she may even cancel the nomination of the President of the German Federal Bank (Deutsche Bundesbank), Jens Weidmann, as the president of ECB. "EU Commission, not ECB presidency, is priority for Merkel," Handelsblatt quoted a senior government official.

No chance for second de Gaulle

Last year, Time magazine named Emmanuel Macron the next European leader, perhaps, influenced by his impressive remarks on the urgency of reforms in the European Union. Apparently, the French president is also good at building trustworthy relationships with world leaders, including such difficult characters as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Recep T. Erdogan.

A year passed, yet the pan-European initiatives of the incumbent French president remain as is. It seems no one has a slightest clue ​​whether, how and for how long they will be realised.

Over the past year and a half, Macron has actually failed to gain serious political weight enough to make his vision acknowledged internationally. It is more about the weight of his country rather than his personality per se.

After the withdrawal of the Great Britain from the EU, France became the second economy of the Union, but due to its economic situation, France cannot play a more serious role in European affairs.

So far, projections for economic growth are coming up short despite the tough economic reforms pursued by the Macron government. Moody's lowered the growth rate of the French economy in 2018 from 2 to 1.8%. Particularly, the unemployment rate, which in France is higher than the average for the EU, is not reduced. Almost two years ago, it was at the level of 9.4%, now it is about 9%.

On the contrary, the reforms of the labour law implemented by the French government at the request of Brussels and Berlin and intended to reduce pressure on businesses by reducing their social obligations led to endless nationwide protests.

Popularity of Macron, who has recently claimed the role of the “new de Gaulle”, is catastrophically falling and now reaches 29%, as opposed to 64% last summer.

Europe is stormy

According to the Telegraph, the European Union is facing serious problems: its second largest economy voted to leave the bloc, the president of its third largest economy, France, is wary of holding an EU referendum, Italy and Austria choose populist governments, and the countries of the Eastern bloc are once again slipping into authoritarianism. Germany, the first European economy, is no exception either.

It turns out that Angela Merkel, who is going to say her final goodbye soon, and Emmanuel Macron, who has failed to be the next de Gaulle but is the best that Europe has for now, are the only ones to ponder over the fate of the European Union. That is why they showed everyone in Compiegne that their union is strong and they are determined to act "for the good of Europe and peace."

In fact, they will have a chance to demonstrate their determination on November 18, when the leaders of Germany and France meet in Berlin to discuss joint actions on EU reforms according to the so-called Meseberg Declaration adopted in June 2018, which includes the general principles concerning migration policy, new financial mechanisms for the Eurozone and creation of new European defence body.