France could now prove the weak link in the Franco-German engine

Mujtaba Rahman is the head of Eurasia Group’s Europe practice. He tweets at @Mij_Europe.

After a humiliating two-round vote, Friedrich Merz is Germany’s new chancellor. And upon taking office, one of his first acts will be a visit with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris.

Asserting the primacy of the Franco-German partnership is a traditional gesture for all new French and German leaders. And after the four years of misunderstanding and occasional outright hostility between Macron and former Chancellor Olaf Scholz, this will be a welcome return to custom.

Just as significant, however, is Merz’s second foreign visit, which is set to be with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk — a meeting that underscores just how much the bloc has changed.

There’s good reason to believe that the Franco-German “motor” within the EU will jolt back to life in the Macron-Merz era. The two men agree on many things, from the need to create a “sovereign” Europe to the existential obligation to prevent Russia from winning the Ukraine war.

Moreover, Merz has made it clear that, faced with U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” unilateralism, Germany’s delicate post-war pas de deux with the EU and the U.S. must end, and he has called for “independence” from Washington.

All this implies an even closer relationship between Berlin and Brussels — and, therefore, Paris. All the same, it would be wrong to believe the Macron-Merz partnership can become as powerful and pivotal as the Franco-German partnerships of the past, whether in the Giscard-Schmidt era of the 1970s, or the Mitterrand-Kohl double-act of the 1980s.

The EU has become larger and more complex. And Merz’s Warsaw visit recognizes the bloc’s multipolarity — a fact, however belatedly, also accepted by France.

According to his most senior advisers, one of Merz’s foreign policy aims is to strengthen the so-called triangular “Weimar” relationship between Berlin, Paris and Warsaw — perhaps through the negotiation of a new treaty.

But there are also other reasons to fear the Franco-German relationship may be more difficult to rebuild than the warm words between Merz and Macron suggest.

Over the last four years, many of the problems between the two countries have largely arisen from weaknesses on the German side: a fragmented coalition, a taciturn and unadventurous chancellor, and the collapse of the “German model” of cheap Russian energy and close trade relations with China.

In the years ahead, though, it looks like the problems may arise from the French side of the Rhine.

Emmanuel Macron has only two years left in the Elysée Palace. | Pool Photo by Gonzalo Fuentes/EPA

Macron has only two years left in the Elysée Palace. And while his successor may well be another pro-European centrist, they could easily be a Trump-like “rip-it-all-down” radical from the extreme right or, less likely, the extreme left.

Meanwhile, France’s fourth minority government in just 17 months still faces the possibility of censure and collapse before the end of the year. Moreover, the country’s simultaneous budget crisis means that despite talking a big game on European sovereignty and defense, Macron is unable to put France’s money where his mouth is.

The French president has spoken of the urgent need to increase the defense spending of European nations to 3 percent or 3.5 percent of GDP by 2030. At present, though, his own country spends only about 2 percent of defense. Indeed, the French government has mentioned spending an “extra” €3 billion next year, but this number is in line with existing pledges, thus will keep France’s defense budget at roughly 2 percent of GDP.

In other words, Macron is placing all his hopes for France’s contribution to a rapid European military build-up on proposals for a new EU debt facility, which will be based on supranational borrowing and grants.

But while Germany under Merz is ready to increase its own military spending, it remains to be seen whether the new chancellor’s grand alliance will also be ready to pay for more in France.

Defense budgets aside, Merz and Macron really do think alike — much more so than Macron and Scholz did.

The new German chancellor is ready to press ahead with Ukraine’s EU membership. Also, he’s not opposed to nuclear energy — a stance that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll restart a German nuclear program, but he’ll probably abandon Berlin’s unhelpful attitude in Brussels toward the “green” credentials of France’s vast nuclear industry.

Merz also favors Macron’s idea that EU competition policy should be changed to allow for the emergence of “European champions.” And he has spoken positively of Macron’s wider argument that, in terms of both military and economic security, Europe must develop greater strategic autonomy.

After eight years of visionary speeches on all these issues, and small advances in only some, Macron now abruptly finds himself with two new allies. The first, an unwitting Trump; the second, Merz. The question is whether the French leader has the time, and France has the political and financial capacity, to work with Germany once again to deliver on his ideas.