Just before taking, the 1is July, the rotating presidency of the European Union (EU) for six months, Germany wanted to recall the importance that will play its relationship with France during this period. Monday 29 June, Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Emmanuel Macron will meet at Meseberg Castle, near Berlin, two years almost to the day after having signed a declaration there declaring their will to endow the euro zone with a embryonic budget common.
At the forefront of their discussions, the recovery plan of 750 billion euros, proposed by the European Commission but that Berlin and Paris have largely inspired. “It is the first time since confinement that Mme Merkel receives a flesh-and-blood head of state. The Chancellor wanted to mark the day before her presidency with this physical meeting », comments the Elysée. The message is clear: M. Macron and Mme Merkel will do everything to convince the reluctant countries, starting with the Netherlands and the other three “frugal” (Austria, Sweden, Denmark), to adopt it. They are already on the move: on June 22, the German chancellor spoke with her Dutch counterpart, Mark Rutte, twenty-four hours before the French president went himself to The Hague.
A “session chair”
More than the German Presidency as such, it is this Franco-German dynamic that will be decisive in bringing about this unprecedented recovery plan, as was always the case at key moments in the history of European integration. This is because Mme Merkel, hitherto opposed to any debt pooling and massive financial transfers between the 27, changed her mind and agreed with Mr. Macron to present a joint “initiative” on May 18, that the Commission, on May 27, was able in turn to make its proposals, which draw a Europe more federal and united than ever.
“The EU presidency is no longer useful politically. It’s a session chair, judges the former French minister and ex-MEP Alain Lamassoure. Besides, who will remember that it was under the current Croatian presidency that this new revolutionary step for European construction was launched? “ Since the Lisbon Treaty, which entered into force in 2009, the European Council, which brings together heads of state and government, has been given a presidency for two and a half years (renewable once), today occupied by former Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel. The six-month rotating presidency concerns the councils of ministers, the meetings of ambassadors to the Union and the various technical groups.
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