With populism endemic in its periphery, the European Union is clearly in a period of deep uncertainty. If EU leaders are ever going to right the ship, they will need to identify the root cause of today's instability, which is not so much about economics or immigration as it is about de facto Franco-German leadership.
PRINCETON – President Emmanuel Macron’s election in France and the likely continuation of Angela Merkel’s chancellorship in Germany are dramatically at odds with developments in the rest of Europe, which has become increasingly unstable and unpredictable. One wonders if the European Union’s hard Franco-German core is becoming too hard for the rest of the bloc. If so, those who dream of “ever closer” European integration may have to settle for a modestly enlarged Franco-German axis.
PRINCETON – President Emmanuel Macron’s election in France and the likely continuation of Angela Merkel’s chancellorship in Germany are dramatically at odds with developments in the rest of Europe, which has become increasingly unstable and unpredictable. One wonders if the European Union’s hard Franco-German core is becoming too hard for the rest of the bloc. If so, those who dream of “ever closer” European integration may have to settle for a modestly enlarged Franco-German axis.