After a week of trial balloons, Emmanuel Macron has finally found a new prime minister. But the political crisis in the EU’s second-largest member state is not over.
Starting with former Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, the names of many candidates have made their way from the Elysée into the public eye since the weekend foundprobably also to test their popularity.
In the end, it was someone else: the conservative Michel Barnier, former EU Commissioner and tough Brexit negotiator. It doesn’t get much more European than that.
Earlier this year, Mr Brexit used a Exclusive interview with Euractiv to denounce right-wing Eurosceptics. The fact that he had previously relied primarily on anti-European tones in his unsuccessful attempt to secure the Republican presidential nomination is forgiven and forgotten.
But with Barnier, Macron is literally leaving the actual election winner, the left-wing Nouveau Front Populaire, to the left. Barnier has no parliamentary majority with either his own or Macron’s MPs – an instability that is also worrying Germany.
The new government could become dependent on Marine Le Pen’s Rassemblement National, which can overthrow Barnier at any time, fears Chantal Kopf, the European policy spokeswoman for the German Greens. It should not be forgotten that the majority of French people voted pro-European.
How Barnier’s relationship with the right might develop read here. For background information on Barnier, read here. On the European reactions it goes here.
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EU elections & politics
EU liberals rebel against vice-presidency for Meloni’s commissioner. Italy’s designated EU Commissioner Raffaele Fitto is expected to become Vice-President of the Commission and receive the economic portfolio. However, there is resistance to this among the Commission President’s allies in Parliament. Read more.
Energy & Environment
Industrial decarbonization: France and Germany are neck and neck. Industry in France has a similar carbon intensity to that of Germany, even though France’s electricity supply is largely decarbonized, according to a report published on Thursday (5 September) by La Fabrique de l’industrie and McKinsey. Read more.
French industry fears inertia in energy and climate dossiers. With France without a government since July, absent ministers’ desks are piled with unfinished business such as hydrogen, nuclear energy and carbon capture. Industry fears that this government paralysis will jeopardise the country’s energy and climate goals and the investments associated with them. Read more.
Digital
EU, UK, USA and Israel sign the world’s first AI agreement. The EU, the UK, the US and Israel signed the world’s first treaty to protect human rights in AI technology in Vilnius (Lithuania) on Thursday (5 September). However, civil society organisations criticise that the text has been watered down. Read more.
Online child abuse: Hungarian EU bill continues to face resistance. On Wednesday (4 September), representatives of the Member States met to discuss the EU’s draft law to combat online child sexual abuse material, with resistance to the Hungarian Presidency’s approach still evident. Read more.
Panoramic view of Europe
The Czech Republic wants to step in if Russian gas supplies fail. Concerns are growing in Europe about disruptions to gas transit via Ukraine. However, the Czech Republic has sufficient capacity to support other EU countries in the event of an interruption in Russian supplies, says the Czech Industry Minister. Read more.
Bulgaria wants to combat organized crime on the Turkish-Greek border. Bulgaria pledged on Thursday to take measures against spreading organized crime on its border, where mafia companies are said to have set up a business with border traffic. Read more.
Madrid and the EU are developing an emergency plan to deal with the migration crisis. The Spanish government is working hard on a “strategic plan” to defuse the migration crisis on the Canary Islands and in the enclave of Ceuta. The EU border protection agency Frontex has officially asked Madrid for help in dealing with the humanitarian situation. Read more.
Breakaway region in Moldova bans the name ‘Transnistria’. Deputies in the separatist Moldovan province, which is considered close to Russia, passed a law on Wednesday that bans the internationally used name of the region as ‘Transnistria’, which is now associated with ‘Nazism’. Read more.
