The visit on Friday at the start of the Council Presidency was very harmonious. Von der Leyen came to Paris for two days with EU commissioners. At the joint press conference, demonstrative unity was shown.
Macron and von der Leyen jointly called for an end to the violence in Kazakhstan. “The European Union is ready to help where it can,” said von der Leyen. Macron also urged “de-escalation”. Both also emphasized the role of the EU in the crisis region Ukraine. “There is no solution to the conflict without the EU,” said von der Leyen. She pointed out that the EU is supporting Ukraine with six billion euros and has imposed sanctions on Russia.
Macron also justified the dialogue with Russia. “The EU must keep talking to Russia. That doesn’t mean making concessions, ”said Macron, who had phoned Russian President Vladimir Putin twice in the past few weeks. Von der Leyen also announced that she will be working with Macron on the idea of a European security architecture and will put a proposal on the table. Macron said it was up to the Europeans themselves to propose the security architecture they want.
Review and outlook in Paris
Before that, von der Leyen and Macron had visited the Paris Pantheon together and commemorated the European politicians buried there, Jean Monnet and Simone Veil. They left a bouquet of flowers at the memorial for the founding father of the EU and the former MEP. Veil was a Holocaust survivor who repeatedly broke barriers for women in politics. She was roughly at the forefront of the movement that sought abortion in France. Veil was also the first female President of the European Parliament. Monnet was one of the founding fathers of the European Union.
The visit was mainly regarding the big issues that France wants to tackle in the next six months. These include the planned CO2 border tax, better regulation of Internet companies and a reform of the Schengen area. A sticking point will certainly be new budget rules in the EU, regarding which disputes have already broken out beforehand. For some time now, Macron has been in favor of more flexible debt rules, which hardly any member state is currently complying with anyway because of the pandemic.
With the new, SPD-led government in Germany and supporters of Italy, a consensus among the major EU states would now be possible. The conservative majority in the Council and Parliament is largely opposed to such approaches.
Omicron uncertainty factor
The French Presidency of the Council took on a lot in a short space of time: because it coincides with the French presidential election campaign, most of the important meetings take place in the first three months of the year. Above everything, however, hovers the pandemic’s sword of Damocles. The Omikron wave might limit many of Macron’s ambitious projects, and many events and meetings will not take place or will only take place online.
A warning to Paris was the Portuguese presidency a year ago: at that time, a visit by EU leaders to Lisbon meant that three commissioners had to be isolated. Omikron has already hit France hard: More than 200,000 new cases are currently reported here every day. Macron wants to crack down on people who refuse to be vaccinated, and in an interview last week, he didn’t mince his words. He will “secede to the bitter end” unvaccinated people by restricting their “access to the activities of social life” as much as possible, according to Macron.
He used the word “emmerder”, which roughly translates as “pissing off”. The reactions were so violent that even a meeting of the National Assembly had to be interrupted.
When von der Leyens visited on Friday, Macron stood by his words. “I’m sticking to it,” said Macron. It is the duty of the authorities to impose restrictions on those who have not been vaccinated in order to protect the majority of those who have been vaccinated.