Valdai Club

The conflict in Ukraine has accelerated the shift in the centre of gravity within the European Union towards “Mitteleuropa” — Germany and its eastern neighbours, where France’s positions, unlike those of Germany, have never been particularly strong. As a result, the tandem now fully retains its significance for only one participant — Paris, which sees in “special” ties with Berlin an important confirmation of its sovereign status, writes Valdai Club expert Alexei Chikhachev.

The preservation of the status quo in France has caused understandable relief in the European establishment, as well as among most of the media: the staunch Europeanist Macron looks to them like a clearly more advantageous figure than Marine Le Pen, who has proposed reformatting the EU into a union of nation states while weakening common institutions, writes Valdai Club expert Alexei Chikhachev.

Militarily, France is increasingly thinking about reducing the degree of its involvement in the Sahel, then the opposite situation is observed with respect to humanitarian initiatives.

The Normandy Four summit, which has just ended in Paris, became one of the main international events of the passing year: after more than a three-year pause, the leaders of Russia, Germany, France and Ukraine gathered again in full force to try to make headway in resolving the conflict in Donbass. However, regarding the specific results of the meeting, both officials and experts accurately predicted that there wouldn’t be any major breakthrough.

France’s GAFA tax has not appeared out of the blue, but it is certainly the worst possible scenario that has been considered in Paris. Initially, the French government advocated a common EU tech tax, but the idea was blackballed by the Scandinavian countries and Ireland, which offer the most favorable conditions for digital business.

French diplomats understand that without contacts with Moscow it will be very hard to address some common challenges. Apart from Ukraine, these include the settlement in Syria, the situation in the Persian Gulf, the future of the Iranian nuclear deal and perhaps the situation in Libya.

In June 2019, history is giving the world leaders another reason to hold a meeting: the 75th anniversary of the D-day Landings. On both sides of the English Channel, a celebration is being prepared, where the main guest will be US President Donald Trump. However, as often happens at meetings of this kind, the US Commander-in-Chief and his European counterparts will discuss today’s affairs rather than past events.

President Emmanuel Macron declared on the sidelines of the European Council meeting on April 11 that he would not support the start of EU-US trade negotiations as long as the United States stayed outside of the Paris Climate Agreement. Four days later, when this topic was discussed by the EU agriculture ministers, only the French representative voted “nay.”