While Angela Merkel does the coalition conga in Germany, President Macron of France is straining to become the new master of Europe’s destiny.
Friday 29 September 2017 5:00am
Christian May
Macron assumed office in May this year (Source: Getty)
Christian May is the editor of City A.M.
Macron assumed office in May this year (Source: Getty)
In a speech this week he set out his ambitious agenda for the EU’s future, calling for the creation of a European intelligence academy, an EU military budget and intervention force, a European innovation agency, a new frontier police force, a European public prosector for terrorism and organised crime and a wave of new, pan-European universities.
You can imagine the growth of EU agencies and personnel necessary for implementing and sustaining these reforms. Perhaps that’s why he also called for harmonisation of corporate taxes, a new EU carbon tax on imports, new taxes on US tech companies and a bigger, centralised EU budget. If this speech had been made prior to the UK’s referendum on membership the Leave campaign would have secured a far greater victory. Indeed, the Macron Plan articulates everything that Remain campaigners said was never on the cards.
And perhaps it wouldn’t be, if the UK had decided to stay a member. After all, much of what the French President outlined would have been resisted by British officials – whose influence in Brussels was always more significant than most people at home took it to be. But that conversation is over.
Without British resistance, the EU is considerably more free to integrate as far and as deep as it wishes. Theresa May is right to wish them well in this endeavour as we negotiate our departure. And yet, while the French public would vote overwhelmingly to remain in the EU if a referendum were held, there is little evidence of wild enthusiasm for Macron’s grand vision. If the EU elite learn anything from Brexit, it’s that the project requires consent. Macron must start looking for it if his bold agenda is to have any chance of success.
