Just as the United States is seeking less frosty ties with the new leaders of th...
PARIS/BRUSSELS - Just as the United States is seeking less frosty ties with the new leaders of the European Union, French President Emmanuel Macron has seized the helm of European diplomacy, filling a vacuum left by a distracted Britain and a weakened Germany.
“We will speak to whoever is in charge, and if that’s Macron, fine,” Gordon Sondland, U.S. Ambassador to the European Union, told Reuters. “But if I were the Czech Republic or Italy, I’d ask whose interests he is putting first.” None occurred, though Macron later declared Rouhani was open to meeting Trump, possibly at the annual United Nations General Assembly that opens this week in New York.
“The Brexit vote has caused British foreign policy to shrink dramatically. When Emmanuel Macron swept into power in May 2017, the theory was that Paris and Germany would form a tight alliance in the foreign policy realm,” said Jalel Harchaoui, research fellow at the Clingendael Institute. Tensions between Paris, Berlin, Rome and Brussels mean EU foreign policy could fray further as Europe is evolves into a theater of strategic rivalry between the United States and China, with Russia as Beijing’s junior partner, diplomats warn.
“Today, in Europe, nobody has that vitality and nobody has made the strategic and human investment that we have. And that is our fundamental point: to influence things,” Macron said.EU diplomats say it suits Germany to let Macron take the lead on averting conflict with Iran as Berlin is loath to upset Iran’s foe Israel for historical reasons, or appear to confront Trump, with whom the Germans have a fraught relationship over trade, natural gas contracts with Russia and defense spending.
Nowhere is that more apparent than on Russia. Macron’s outreach to Moscow echo those of his predecessors, reflecting the French public’s traditional esteem for Russian culture.
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