Macron’s Post-Merkel European Goals Need a New Approach

Macron’s Post-Merkel European Goals Need a New Approach

In true Jupiterian style, French President Emmanuel Macron said nothing publicly when the AUKUS debacle erupted, letting his ministers and European partners do the talking after Australia scrapped a $66 billion submarine deal with Paris in favor of an American-led alliance in the Indo-Pacific.

Yet now that there’s a power vacuum opening up in Europe, as Germany’s Angela Merkel bows out after 16 years in office, Macron has resurfaced to knock heads together in Brussels and set the tone for a new era — rather like a bad cop shorn of his good-cop restraint.

Recent French “wins” include a new defense deal with Greece, complete with the purchase of three warships, and a scaling-back of the EU’s trade agenda with the US and Australia, the schemers-in-chief of AUKUS. The problem, as Bloomberg News reports, is they’ve also raised hackles among other EU officials and diplomats, who feel the bloc is being swept up in a Macron-led push that risks alienating the Biden administration.

With France about to helm the six-month rotating presidency of the EU, which will overlap with Macron’s own battle for re-election at home, it’s time for a different approach.

Ultimately, Macron’s message is the right one: Europe will drift into