What Macron plans for Europe

The French president’s EU adviser outlines what Paris wants from Brussels.

 
A little less conversation, a little more action — that’s Emmanuel Macron’s plan for Europe in 2020.

The French president has spent the past two years setting up his chess pieces. Now, as the new European Commission takes office, he wants to get down to the work itself — breaking the political deadlock he says is holding back Europe on the global stage.

“The president has laid out the conceptual framework — we’re not going to do the Sorbonne speech every year,” says Clément Beaune, the president’s point man on Europe, referring to Macron’s landmark speech on Europe in 2017, in which he outlined his vision for the Continent. “We are now in the implementation phase.”

Beaune, who has advised Macron since he was economy minister in 2014, rarely speaks on the record about his boss’ plans for Europe. But in an exclusive interview for POLITICO, the soft-spoken redhead opened up about France’s ambitions for the Continent.

Macron has been laying the groundwork for France to take on a greater role in the EU since the beginning of his presidency. Since his election in 2017, he has visited 21 EU countries — some of which hadn’t received a visit from a French president in a decade — to build up a web of political alliances. The idea was to create a “strategy of influence,” says Beaune, “which means, ahead of a Commission decision, we can suggest ideas, go on a tour of capitals, make contributions, write papers with other countries.”

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