The clasped hands of French and German leaders have long embodied the spirit of European unity \u2013 most famously in 1984, when Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand and Helmut Kohl stood hand-in-hand at Verdun in a symbol of reconciliation. <\/p>\n
So, when Chancellor Friedrich Merz grasped President Emmanuel Macron\u2019s hand on the steps of the \u00c9lys\u00e9e palace in early May \u2013 a handshake that was long, warm, and accompanied by backslapping \u2013 it wasn\u2019t just a photo-op. <\/p>\n
It was the clearest sign yet that Europe\u2019s most important alliance was back in motion. After years of sputtering and frustration under Olaf Scholz, the Franco-German engine is humming again, and it has a new name: Merzcron. <\/p>\n
Since Merz\u2019s election, the two have met six times \u2013 most recently with other NATO leaders at The Hague. They will sit down together again on Thursday at the European Council meeting in Brussels. <\/p>\n
Their shared agenda: to drive the European Union response on security, Ukraine and Trump-era uncertainties, and shape Europe\u2019s role on the global stage. <\/p>\n
Ahead of Wednesday\u2019s NATO summit, Macron and Merz laid out their vision in a joint opinion piece in the Financial Times.<\/em> <\/p>\n \u201cIn these testing times, Germany and France – together with our European and transatlantic friends and allies – stand united and strong, to defend our common values as well as the freedom and security of our citizens,\u201d they wrote. <\/p>\n They outlined plans to boost defense spending \u2013 aiming to reach 3.5% of GDP in core military investments \u2013 and to deepen cooperation between NATO and the EU, calling for a stronger, more sovereign Europe that is no longer reliant on others for its security. They pledged to ensure Ukraine emerges \u201cprosperous, robust and secure,\u201d and warned that European stability for decades to come hangs in the balance. <\/p>\n The signs are that the powerful \u2018Mercron\u2019 or \u2018Merkozy\u2019 alliance, portmanteaus derived from the names of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Macron and his predecessor Nicholas Sarkozy, is evolving into an equally influential \u2018Merzcron.\u2019 <\/p>\n The two-day European Council summit now underway in Brussels, hot on the heels of a G7 meeting in Canada and the NATO leaders\u2019 summit in The Hague, is the first of Merz\u2019s chancellorship. It will likely be another demonstration of how strong this union could be. <\/p>\n Under Scholz, the former German chancellor, the Berlin-Paris axis became strained, something that both Ischinger and Hollande noted. <\/p>\n Stefan Seidendorf, director at the Franco-German Institute in Ludwigsburg, Germany, said Scholz spent so much time doing \u201cdomestic homework\u201d that he was never able to fully focus on Europe. <\/p>\n The three-way coalition he headed was beset with infighting on domestic and Europe issues and eventually collapsed in November last year, triggering an early election. <\/p>\n He added that the same went for Scholz, \u201cwho found it difficult to get along with this French president living in the palace of \u00c9lys\u00e9e with all the gold and the glitter and the ceremony.\u201d <\/p>\n But neither was Macron and Merz\u2019s friendship a given, considering their different styles. Macron, 47, is Jupiterian and theatrical, hailed by some as a visionary, dismissed by others as a narcissist. Merz, 69, is impulsive, prickly under pressure and occasionally leans into populist bluster. <\/p>\n That said, Ischinger said both leaders \u201cmet rather easily \u2013 and got their act together.\u201d Speaking about their shared character traits, he said they \u201clove interaction. They enjoy difficult questions. These two have a way of understanding each other \u2013 they are open.\u201d <\/p>\n Their recent trip to Kyiv, alongside British and Polish leaders Keir Starmer and Donald Tusk, \u201cwas a symbol of a new kind of determined getting-together of the major European powers to make progress,\u201d Ischinger said. <\/p>\n Paris has long been more hawkish than Berlin on its support for Ukraine. Macron has been a strong proponent of boots on the ground in the country and has allowed Ukraine to fire French-made long-range missiles deep into Russia. <\/p>\n However, Hollande said, \u201cwe\u2019ve seen that Merz\u2019s position is a bit different from that of his predecessor\u2026 including on the delivery of missiles capable of reaching Russian territory.\u201d <\/p>\n Since taking office, Merz has welcomed Ukraine\u2019s President Volodymyr Zelensky to Berlin and unveiled a new $5 billion package for Ukraine that includes joint co-operation in the development of long-range missiles capable of being fired deep into Russia, some of which could be online by the end of the year. <\/p>\n \u201cNow we\u2019re in perfect unity,\u201d Ischinger said of the Franco-German alignment on Ukraine. <\/p>\n Russia\u2019s unease over a more coordinated Franco-German approach to Ukraine is already starting to show. <\/p>\n News of last month\u2019s visit to Kyiv by Merz and Macron was accompanied by the release of a photo taken ahead of a meeting between them. Sitting on the table was a white tissue. <\/p>\n Its presence sparked an online rumor, amplified by Kremlin officials and later traced back to pro-Russian accounts, that falsely claimed the crumpled tissue \u2013 which Macron picked up and pocketed \u2013 was a cocaine bag. <\/p>\n The \u00c9lys\u00e9e countered by saying \u201cwhen European unity becomes inconvenient, disinformation goes so far as to make a simple tissue look like drugs. This fake news is being spread by France\u2019s enemies, both abroad and at home.\u201d <\/p>\n US President Donald Trump\u2019s return to the White House has also forced a new alignment between the European powerhouses, particularly on the issue of Europe\u2019s security. <\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s insistence that Europe should do more to defend itself triggered the shift, Hollande explained, saying that it \u201cforced France and Germany to work together diplomatically and militarily, whereas until then, their main alignment had been on monetary issues. <\/p>\n \u201cToday there is a shared responsibility. Germany must do more for its defense, and France must be willing to share a number of proposals and initiatives \u2013 including on defense \u2013 with Germany,\u201d Hollande says. <\/p>\n Before even formally taking office, Merz managed to push through the reform of Germany\u2019s constitutional debt brake to unlock over half a trillion dollars in defense spending. He has also committed to creating Europe\u2019s largest army. Both represent a major shift for Germany. <\/p>\n Previously, Hollande suggested, those moves might have been difficult for France to stomach. <\/p>\n \u201cWe used to be very reluctant about German rearmament. That was a politically sensitive issue after the war. But today, no one in France fears German rearmament \u2013we welcome it,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n Macron and Merz also appear to have taken a similar approach to dealing with Trump. Both have had effusive and positive meetings in the Oval Office with a president who has not always been so welcoming to visiting leaders. <\/p>\n Paris and Berlin are also trying to revive the decades-old \u201cWeimar Triangle.\u201d Established after German reunification in 1991, it aimed to bring Poland deeper into the European fold, led by Germany and France. <\/p>\n Ischinger feels the relative weight of the European Union has shifted eastwards due to the war in Ukraine, meaning that Warsaw, now more than ever, must now be a vital ally for Paris and Berlin. \u201cHarmony (between France and Germany) is key, but it\u2019s not sufficient,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n \u201cThe center of gravity of the good old European Union was somewhere between France and Germany. But today, almost half of the members are to the east of Germany,\u201d he added, and giving Poland more say is the best way to bring the continent together. <\/p>\n That shift, too, is already playing out. As well as taking part in the Kyiv trip, Tusk has found himself directly involved in European talks with Trump, as the US president has attempted to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war. <\/p>\n Poland\u2019s status as Europe\u2019s fastest growing economy, its commitment to NATO defense spending \u2013 way above other member states\u2019 at 4.2% of GDP in 2024, projected to rise to 4.7% this year \u2013 and its geographic location bordering Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, have made the nation a key nexus for the continent. <\/p>\n Nonetheless, for Hollande, \u201cEurope only moves forward when France and Germany speak with one voice and pull in the same direction. Only then can the European machine function properly.\u201d <\/p>\n Ischinger added: \u201cIf Franco-German cooperation works well, you have a perfect precondition to get the entire European Union underway, moving forward.\u201d <\/p>\n For now, the \u201cMerzcron\u201d engine is firing up and, if it keeps its momentum, it could pull the rest of Europe into gear. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The clasped hands of French and German leaders have long embodied the spirit of European…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18289,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18288","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18288\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18289"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailywashingtoninsider.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} Leaders who \u2018love interaction\u2019<\/h2>\n
\u2018Perfect unity\u2019 over Ukraine<\/h2>\n
European security<\/h2>\n
Europe\u2019s shifting center<\/h2>\n