An unprecedented and perhaps dangerous situation. Europe’s two giants, France and Germany, are experiencing a political crisis. The traffic light coalition led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz has fallen in Berlin and will go to the polls at the end of February. On December 4, in Paris, the government of Michel Barnier fell, which Emmanuel Macron sought but did not have a real majority that could support it.
Beyond political indecision, there are also economic problems. The Transalpines have to manage the explosion in public spending: the government bowed to the budget law, as no one was willing to launch a “tears and blood” maneuver. The Germans, on the other hand, have to deal with the crisis of the automotive giants, especially Volkswagen, who laid off people before they could gain a foothold in the Chinese-dominated electricity market. Is it their job? Not exactly.
The consequences affect the entire European Union, which has just begun Ursula von der Leyen’s second term in office. Let’s try to understand the origins of these two parallel crises (and how they differ) and what their likely impact is on the functioning of Europe. Threatened by Russia, pressured at the trade level by potential tariffs from Donald Trump and retaliation from Xi, Jinping needs Brussels to mediate but also make quick decisions. And doing this without the support of its pillars is a difficult task.
What happened with the fall of the Scholz government in Germany?
The so-called traffic light coalition, which united socialists (SPD), liberals (FDP) and Greens in Germany, dissolved on November 7. “The coalition led by Scholz had not been working well for a long time, so it was always complicated. Firstly, legal issues had the impact, namely the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court in November 2023 refusing to reuse the money that was not given. Paul, secretary general of the Committee on Franco-French Relations “We saw that the money spent on the pandemic in a climate fund due to Covid exploded in the budget last summer,” Maurice explains to Today (Cerfa), at the French Institute of International Relations (Ifri).
Germany is used to stable governments based on consensus, as evidenced by the fact that in the past Angela Merkel has governed three-quarters of the time with the SPD and the CDU. “This is what we call the ‘Grand Coalition’ in Germany; until the 2000s it was an exception and today it is more or less the norm,” recalls Maurice. Unlike Merkel, Chancellor Scholz lacked leadership charisma above all else. The unprecedented three-way coalition did the rest. Caught between the liberals and the Greens, the socialists failed to assert themselves. The failure of the three-party coalition will push the winning parties in the next elections to seek a more manageable two-way deal, according to the Ifri researcher. The scenario under the Eiffel Tower is completely different.
Who brought down the guillotine on Michel Barnier?
Let’s summarize. Following the victory of the far right in the European elections, Emmanuel Macron dissolves the National Assembly early, sends the French to the polls in the summer, and consecrates the agreements made with the left and the Greens to prevent Marine Le Pen from gaining victory in the parliamentary elections. The New Popular Front (NFP) manages to defeat him, but three months later the French president removes the entire red-green coalition from the government and entrusts it to a right-wing man, Michel Barnier. The dream crutch for the Prime Minister is Le Pen’s National Unity. Just six months later, he sentenced the leader of the far right, Barnier, to the (political) guillotine and voted for the NFP motion. Thus, the shortest government in French history falls.
“The political system as it exists today is the legacy of Emmanuel Macron, who disrupted the party system in 2017,” Maurice emphasizes. “If we make a comparison with Germany, the crisis in France seems to be deeper because we are faced with the disappearance of political parties. We now have groups like the left-wing New Popular Front, the centrist group that refers to Macron, but we do not know where they stand or what their horizons are.” , emphasizes the expert. “The current National Assembly system is not designed for coalitions, but is structured to have a majority party that must guide the legislative process. In France, we are not used to compromises, which are indispensable in the current framework”, concludes Maurice.
Next steps for France and Germany
Conflicting perspectives emerge due to the different nature of crises. Germans know for sure that they will go to the polls on February 23. The Christian Democrats, led by Friedrich Mertz, are ahead in the polls. He will likely lead a coalition as well, but in a much superior role to that played by Scholz. In the Bundestag, the Greens could retreat, the liberals could leave and the extremists could advance: the neo-Nazi nostalgic AfD and Sarah Wagenknecht’s post-communist party are both particularly strong in East Germany. is unknown. They will not be able to go to the polls again before June.
Macron is currently trying to shape a new government; this time by an agreement between centrists and socialists. Meanwhile, the radical left wants his resignation to bring forward the 2027 presidential elections. In the next round of elections, everyone will have to face, above all, the disappointment experienced by a large segment of the French, who were called upon to vote radically en masse. see the far right and then hand over the fate of the new government to Le Pen.
“In France we have a compensatory system dreamed of for a stable majority, but we see that this is no longer the ideal system. For a long time it was said that this prevented the Convention citizen from influencing French politics. This was true. The party obtained only a few deputies”, he explains Maurice. Now that Le Pen can count on 124 of them, the cord sanitaire no longer works.
The far right is expanding in Europe
Even in Germany, the far-right of the Alternative for Germany is making progress. It came first in Saxony and Thuringia in the last regional elections and made a historic leap forward in Brandenburg, all states of the former German Democratic Republic. A process that raises fears of even better results given the federal elections. Maurice explained: “The paradox is that if you look at France, Italy and the Netherlands, where the nationalist right is around 30%, the success of the far right in East Germany at the moment is within European norms.”
“The exception at the moment on a European scale is the west of Germany, where democratic parties have a very large majority and a traditional democratic party (CDU, ed.) is beginning to establish itself,” explained the expert: New neoconservative in Friedrich Mertz, Wok which sees the expression of the traditional conservative right, far from the extremes of the anti-Trump and Trumpist right. Although some of his statements suggest otherwise.
The European Union faces crisis in France and Germany
Brussels is, albeit implicitly, concerned about the destabilization in the two countries. Ursula von der Leyen may reap some temporary benefits, but may suffer in the long run. “The EU Commission represents the European Council, where we know that the two most important countries are France and Germany. Even if von der Leyen can impose herself on some issues by taking advantage of this ‘gap’ in the two countries (see Mercosur, ed.), the most important decisions will not make them can’t ignore it”, explained Maurice.
“There are issues we need to agree on and the current voting system in the Council means that France and Germany are vital because of their demographics, their political weight and their ability to drag other countries along.” To form a majority, France and Germany cannot talk to each other, not because they do not want to, but because they do not have a government, which is likely to create problems in the decision-making process of the EU”, puts the expert watch. While the Franco-German axis suffers, new structures and alliances may emerge, but these Their orbits are not well defined.
Alternative alliances to the Franco-German axis
With the war in Ukraine, the countries of Central and Eastern Europe gained more weight, especially centrist Donald Tusk’s Poland and authoritarian Viktor Orban’s Hungary. The south of the old continent unusually refers to two governments characterized by stability: the government of Giorgia Meloni in Italy and the government of socialist Pedro Sanchez in Spain. In particular, the Prime Minister managed to establish a special relationship with the President of the Commission. One wonders which of these leaders could benefit from the weakening of Paris and Berlin. “It is true that Poland is becoming increasingly important, but its economic weight is not equal to that of Germany, which remains a global economic power, or France, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, which is also a nuclear power,” said Maurice .
“Another difference with respect to emerging alliances is that France and Germany are used to talking to each other, and this is reflected in the fact that, despite all the difficulties, regardless of the governments in office, the number of meetings between the German Chancellor and the French President is higher than the number of meetings between other European leaders “More so, both because there are certain formats for dialogue and because two states know that no progress can be made in Europe if they do not talk to each other.” It reflects Maurice.
Error in EU institutions
With the crisis experienced by the two governments, there is a risk of some kind of error in the EU’s institutional system that could have serious consequences. “The European Union needs cohesion, especially with Donald Trump coming to power on January 20th and threatening a trade war. The president-elect goes and starts talking to some European leaders rather than others. There’s a risk there will be no consistency in the answers.” and this also applies in the context of relations with China and the war in Ukraine,” concludes the Ifri researcher.
In short, Brussels is waiting for Paris to pick up the phone and start calling Berlin again.
Source: Today IT
Emma Fitzgerald is an accomplished political journalist and author at The Nation View. With a background in political science and international relations, she has a deep understanding of the political landscape and the forces that shape it.
