Macron’s answer to the German swing to the right

German elections: It’s not just about migrants, it’s also about the Euro

 
The migrant issue has swayed the German elections, with the AfD (Alternative for Germany) leveraging anti-immigrant sentiments to break into the German Bundestag as the party with the third-most seats. But there’s more to it. Besides AfD, the other party that has made significant gain is the FDP (Free Democrats). What the two parties have in common is a deep rejection of any increased solidarity within the Eurozone, which they inevitably view as a step towards a “Transferunion” — a “Union of transfers” in which they fear German taxpayers would end up paying for other countries’ public deficits.

The AfD was actually launched in 2013 on an anti-Euro platform and later focused on anti-immigration only in the wake of the migrant crisis — essentially riding from one EU crisis to the other. The FDP played a significant role in the previous coalition government to impose a very restrictive approach in negotiations over the Greek government’s debts. The message to the chancellor is therefore clear. The German electorate’s swing to the right is not only about migrants. Voters leaving the CDU (Christian Democrats) and CSU (Christian Social Union) for the AfD and the FDP also want a tougher line on Eurozone issues.

 
The populist mechanics of Europe

This bodes ill for the cohesion of the European Union. While populist movements across Europe share a lot of the same concerns, they pull in opposite directions on economic issues. The leftist movements in Southern Europe (Italy’s Five Star movement, Greece’s Syriza, and Spain’s Podemos) want more solidarity and flexibility within the Eurozone, not less. But the German right want the opposite. In fact, there is a negative feedback loop at work here, with rightist populism in Germany hardening Berlin’s fiscal conservatism and its policy push of austerity on other Eurozone members, which, in reaction, will fuel extremes from left and right in other Eurozone countries. If this continues, finding compromise and a middle ground within the EU will likely get much harder. French president Emmanuel Macron believes these populist mechanics can be broken, and that France should help bridge the divide between Germany and Southern Europe. The results of the German election will make it harder, as a tougher line on economic governance is hardly compatible with Macron’s proposal to strengthen integration within the Eurozone. FDP leader Christian Lindner said on election night he did not want a Eurozone budget “to pay for France’s public expanses.” It was, he said, a “redline” for him.

 
Macron doubles down

Macron, however, has not backed off. Instead, he doubled down. In an address on Europe at the Sorbonne only two days after the German election, he expanded on the vision he had previously outlined in Athens earlier this month. He reaffirmed the necessity of having a Eurozone finance minister, a common budget and more democratic accountability. But rather than focusing only on these contentious issues, he proposed a more global deal for the future of the European Union, covering a wide range of issues from institutional reform to innovation policy. His main proposals seek to address some key German concerns: he wants more control over migration, with a common border police, common rules on asylum policy, and more security cooperation (for instance by developing common military projection capabilities and enlarging EU prosecutor competences to deal with terrorism).

In short, Macron proposes to make the EU more democratic, more integrated, and more secure. Faced with anti-EU populism at home, Macron wants a tighter union that can fend off the downsides of globalization or, at least, reduce the concerns about globalization that much of European populism feeds off of. And while there is little question that the German election has complicated Macron’s plans, he remains determined to push forward, saying he was confident that Angela Merkel will be “bold” as she takes up her fourth term as chancellor and in tune with “the trend of history.”

 
Paul Zajac is a French career diplomat and a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) where he focuses on Europe and the European Union, transatlantic and European security issues, NATO, and France.