At the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum organized by the Körber-Stiftung on November 24, Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer once again tried to downplay the divergence with France. Then the moderator asked her the following question: "Didn’t President Macron say that the Chancellor does not share your point of view?" Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer replied: "I have never heard Angela Merkel consider NATO to be superfluous" - suggesting that this was at least implicit in the French position.
Some say the former candidate for Ms Merkel’s succession is actually France’s best ally, because in the German debate, the minister from Saarland supports the need for increased defense efforts. If that were the case, her line would echo that of Prime Minister Blair after the St. Malo Declaration (December 1998), or the conclusions on a European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) adopted at the Nice Summit in 2000: asserting that London had taken a step toward European defense, but above all pointing out that the United Kingdom had succeeded in blocking France’s anti-NATO drift. This does not bode well for the future.
In any case, the "AKK-Macron polemic" is not done making waves yet. In a very strong-worded article in Politico (whose positions we do not share), Rym Momtaz remarks that commentators from Germany, the Baltic states and Eastern Europe widely noted that Mr Macron did not even mention the word "transatlantic" in his Grand Continent interview, "despite the imminent arrival of a more friendly US administration". Tara Varma, director of the Paris office of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said that this "makes European transatlanticists worry about the French position". A few days later (November 25), Steven Erlanger, the New York Times correspondent in Brussels, entitled his article: "As Trump exits, rifts in Europe widen again".
In the same vein, the latest issue of The Economist speaks of "war of words" between Paris and Berlin and deplores the effect this may have on the new American administration.
Should we enter into a damaging debate about ulterior motives?
From the point of view of the French authorities, can we simply dismiss what largely appears to be unjustified criticism, or a harmful debate in which suspicions and ulterior motives take the place of arguments? We are tempted to say that doing so would be imprudent, for several reasons.
First of all, the sensibility expressed by Ms Kramp-Karrenbauer is strong in Germany, at least within her party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), as well as in broad segments of European public opinion. Yet one cannot wish to make the European Union a major player on the international stage without taking account of the thoughts of other Europeans. President Macron’s anti-Americanism trial was all the more absurd in that he, in the same interview with Le Grand Continent, explicitly pointed out that it is "very hard to make sure that things are respected if the Americans are not on our side". Secondly, the various European governments are obviously positioning themselves vis-à-vis the upcoming Biden administration. That is the core of it all: a sort of race for the favor of the future American president is, de facto, underway. Insinuating, or letting it be insinuated, that the French are incorrigible in their habit of wanting to weaken Atlantic solidarity is tantamount to diminishing a competitor’s chances.
Add new comment