Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, at the head of the two biggest powers in the EU, are now displaying their differences over Ukraine with rare ostentation, with the risk of playing into the hands of Vladimir Putin.
A “disaster”: the influential German magazine Der Spiegel denounces on Wednesday the “egocentric” behavior of the two leaders, who readily present themselves “as driving forces of Europe” while they are in the process of harming it out of pure “vanity”.
Relations between the austere center-left chancellor and the French head of state, which have been moving slowly since the beginning, seem to have reached a low point.
The most blatant disagreements currently concern the form of aid to be given to Ukraine in the face of the Russian steamroller, at a time when a vital envelope of more than 60 billion dollars remains blocked in the United States.
The support conference in kyiv organized by Paris on Monday could have been a good opportunity for the Europeans to display their unity.
Instead, “new attacks between French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz cast a shadow over the state of European cooperation, two years after the attack on Russia,” laments the German magazine Wirtschaftswoche.
5000 helmets
The French head of state appeared to implicitly attack countries like Germany, which has long hesitated to deliver certain heavy weapons to kyiv. “I remind you that two years ago, many around this table said: “we are going to offer sleeping bags and helmets”. Today they say: “we have to do it faster and harder,” he said in Paris.
Berlin attracted sarcasm after offering to send 5,000 helmets to Ukraine, just before the start of the Russian offensive.
Emmanuel Macron’s statement sounded like a response to Olaf Scholz who had just expressed his refusal to deliver the long-range Taurus missiles requested by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
It also intervened while the German Chancellor, whose country is the largest European contributor in absolute value of financial and military aid to Ukraine with more than seven billion euros planned this year, continues to call his European allies to do more, implicitly targeting France and Italy.
In this context, the possibility raised by the French president of sending soldiers from European or NATO countries to Ukraine was categorically rejected on Tuesday by Olaf Scholz.
“This is not dramatic,” the Chancellor’s spokesperson, Steffen Hebestreit, tried to downplay on Wednesday.
Emmanuel Macron “has marked his position, for which there is little international support […] while Germany belongs to a large group that sees things differently,” including the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain and Italy, he nevertheless added.
“Champagne” in Moscow
But these rivalries are “deeply regrettable” and benefit Russian President Vladimir Putin, warns former German ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger on Welt TV. “Where do you think the champagne corks are going to pop?” Not in Washington, nor in Italy, but in Moscow,” believes the former director of the Munich Security Conference.
“Putin’s most powerful weapon is the dispute in Europe”, says the German magazine Wirtschaftswoche.
Beyond that, France and Germany have several fundamental differences, notably on European preference for arms purchases and the design of air defense.
“The difference with Scholz is that he does not have nuclear weapons and not the same army as us,” says an advisor to the French executive, and “closing a door is strategically offering a point to Putin.”
“These disputes weaken European capacity to address its security challenges,” judges Rym Momtaz, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.
Paris sees the chancellor’s defense policy, essentially focused on the protection of the United States via NATO, as “a challenge to the Franco-German compromises” decided in 2017 with Angela Merkel aimed at promoting EU sovereignty , points out Jacob Ross, from the DGAP think tank.
“From the French point of view, Olaf Scholz betrays the idea of EU sovereignty,” underlines the expert, “and undermines the political legacy that Macron would like to leave in 2027.”