Angela Merkel receives Emmanuel Macron on Monday at the dawn of a German presidency of the EU facing, with the coronavirus, an unprecedented crisis which the Chancellor intends to seize to refine his European heritage.
The French president, who promised to bring Monday “strong answers” in matters of ecology, must recover him after the failure of his party on Sunday in municipal elections translated by a green wave.
From the “Green Deal” of the European Commission to Brexit, via the migration issue or relations with China and the United States, the sites will not fail, from July 1, for the Chancellor.
She had not held the rotating EU presidency since 2007.
But it is the Covid-19 epidemic and the ensuing economic crisis that will be the priority for the next six months.
“The coronavirus pandemic has turned our world upside down, as have the plans of the German presidency,” summed up the chancellor in late May.
“We want to use this unprecedented crisis to start unprecedented changes in the European Union,” German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas confirmed to the European Council on International Relations on Monday.
– “Absolute priority” –
“The first reflexes, including our own, were rather national and not always European,” admitted Merkel, who now intends to ward off “the danger that a deep gap will continue to widen in Europe”.
It is now banking on “solidarity and mutual aid” between the 27.
A 180 degree turn on the part of the German leader, questioned for her intransigence towards a Greece close to bankruptcy in 2011.
The chancellor could thus “use this presidency to shape a legacy”, according to a European diplomat, referring to the chancellor’s “swan song”.
Ms. Merkel, in power for 15 years, has indeed planned to leave the chancellery in late 2021.
Often accused of lack of political courage, she has just broken a German taboo in matters of financial solidarity by proposing with Mr. Macron a European recovery plan of 500 billion euros.
Above all, the two leaders, who meet at the beginning of the evening at Meseberg Castle, north of Berlin, proposed that it be financed by shared European debts.
This Franco-German initiative paved the way for the plan estimated in the end at 750 billion euros by the European Commission, which, however, still promises tough negotiations in Europe.
“We are optimistic, determined and determined to obtain a budgetary agreement in July,” wants to believe the French presidency.
“An agreement on this plan and on the future budget for the next seven years will be the top priority of our presidency,” confirms Mr Maas, convinced that “Europe’s prosperity in the decades to come depends on it”.
The stakes are high, the success of this rotating presidency, or even the future of the European Union, playing out in the coming weeks, according to Berlin and Paris.
Not adopting the stimulus package “would worsen all the problems” by fueling populism, the Chancellor warned on Saturday in an interview with European newspapers.
If the EU overcomes the reluctance of the so-called “frugal” countries opposed in the state to the recovery plan – the Netherlands, Austria, Denmark and Sweden – the German presidency will be partly successful.
– “No deal” debtor –
But another big piece awaits the EU, with deadlocked post-Brexit negotiations.
Leaving the EU on January 31, the United Kingdom is now negotiating with Brussels in an attempt to establish an advantageous commercial relationship with the European bloc at the end of the transition period ending at the end of the year.
The discussions did not allow any real progress, raising fears of a potentially devastating “no deal” for the economy.
Merkel does not hide either that she intends to see Europe assume “more responsibilities” on a global scale vis-à-vis the Chinese and American “blocs”.
The Chancellor wants to conclude an “investment agreement” with Beijing. But an EU-China summit in September in Leipzig had to be canceled because of the epidemic and also for lack of prospect of agreement.
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