Paso doble, tango? We can spin all the possible metaphors, but the dance step that will be played this week between France and Spain will for sure be a big step forward. That of the socialist basketball player Pedro Sánchez who, from the height of his ninety meters, wants to make the European Union stronger in the rivalry which opposes it to the United States and China. It was he who was asking for this treaty of cooperation and friendship that he will initial Thursday with Emmanuel Macron. After more than 300 agreements signed between Paris and Madrid since the 17th century, it was unlikely that these two neighbors would not seal their destiny in a common charter, like General de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer with the Treaty of Élysée in 1962. At the Franco-Spanish summit in Montauban in March 2021, Pedro Sánchez had therefore suggested to Emmanuel Macron this idea of a treaty which would enhance bilateral work and would make it possible to display an agreement in the service of their common European ambition. “We finally found the key”, confides to us the head of Spanish diplomacy, José Manuel Albares. A former ambassador in Paris, he worked to put this framework in place to make cooperation more functional and efficient.
“From the beginning, we had seen that we had treaties with countries on the other side of the world but not with our own neighbors, confirms Clément Beaune, former adviser to Emmanuel Macron for Europe at the Élysée, who became Minister Delegate for European Affairs until last July. However, what is most lacking in France’s diplomacy within the EU is a stronger bilateral relationship with those who matter. Because to be influential in Brussels, you need buddies you can count on, allies to maneuver the boat Europe. »
Energy and migrations
What will we find in this treatise? The summary of all that has already been done in key areas such as security, defence, industry, and more recently with the granting of dual nationality for hundreds of thousands of French and Spaniards living for decades in either side of the Pyrenees. Or with the agreement for the construction of a gas pipeline by 2030 between Barcelona, precisely, and Marseilles for the transport of green hydrogen in order to supply northern Europe with clean energy. New ambitions will also be displayed in the area of migration, which places Spain at the forefront of the maritime route of the western Mediterranean. The treaty will also establish more exchanges and sharing of methods of governance. As with Germany, Spanish and French ministers will be invited to Paris and Madrid each quarter to attend the Council of Ministers of the neighbor. “It’s not a gimmick at all, testifies Arancha Gonzáles, former Minister of Foreign Affairs, now Director of the School of International Affairs at Sciences-Po. You have to familiarize yourself with the other’s way of governing to better understand it, and there is nothing better than immersing yourself in the day-to-day work of its institutions. »
Systematic coordination
“This treaty with Spain is the continuation of the pearl necklace started with the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle and then that of the Quirinal”, tells us a high-ranking official French source. This does not mean that it will have the same value as the texts signed under the Macron presidency with Angela Merkel and Mario Draghi before the complication of Franco-German and Franco-Italian relations with their successors, Olaf Scholz and Giorgia Meloni. “Before, there was a French obsession with favoring the Franco-German couple, but all that has evolved with the need to make a Europe that is increasingly variable in geometry work, signal Arancha Gonzales. Or Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sánchez are convinced Europeans, they both campaigned on Europe. » These two young leaders, 51 years old in February for the Spaniard, 45 years old since December for the Frenchman – have not, however, become fused. “They are not ping-pong players”, says one of their closest collaborators. But it’s true that they don’t need anyone to talk to each other live, in French or in English, as evidenced by the messages they exchange on WhatsApp.
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But Macron and Sánchez have learned to become accomplices, because they play Europe first
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If they took time to find each other, it is in particular because of their very different backgrounds. Sánchez rose through the ranks of the PSOE, an aging socialist party, to end up governing with Podemos, the Spanish partners of Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s Insoumis. Macron, he had bet quite a bit on the centrists of Ciudadanos before realizing that their alliance with the right and the extreme right of Vox was ruining their liberal and moderate message. “But Macron and Sánchez have learned to become accomplices, says José Manuel Albares, because they play Europe first. » The treaty thus provides for the establishment of systematic consultation and coordination between Paris and Madrid before each European Council and before major planetary summits. “I have never seen such a relationship of closeness and trust in the past twenty years”, admits Stéphane Vojetta, deputy of the French established in Spain and president of the France-Spain friendship group in the Assembly. A structure that could well be reborn in the Cortes after years of austerity to testify to the vitality of the duo.
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