News round-up, Friday, November 25, 2022.
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“Allies or not?
Despite the energy disagreements, it wasn’t until Washington announced a $369 billion industrial subsidy scheme to support green industries under the Inflation Reduction Act that Brussels went into full-blown panic mode.
“The Inflation Reduction Act has changed everything,” one EU diplomat said. “Is Washington still our ally or not?””
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Europe accuses US of profiting from war
EU officials attack Joe Biden over sky-high gas prices, weapons sales and trade as Vladimir Putin’s war threatens to destroy Western unity.
The Ukrainian flag and coat of arms is waved in front of the White House in Washington, DC | MANDEL NGAN/AFP via Getty Images
BY BARBARA MOENS, JAKOB HANKE VELA AND JACOPO BARIGAZZI
NOVEMBER 24, 2022 7:09 PM CET
Nine months after invading Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is beginning to fracture the West.
Top European officials are furious with Joe Biden’s administration and now accuse the Americans of making a fortune from the war, while EU countries suffer.
“The fact is, if you look at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is the U.S. because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons,” one senior official told POLITICO.
The explosive comments — backed in public and private by officials, diplomats and ministers elsewhere — follow mounting anger in Europe over American subsidies that threaten to wreck European industry. The Kremlin is likely to welcome the poisoning of the atmosphere among Western allies.
By Jakob Hanke Vela
Germany and France join forces against Biden in subsidy battle
By Hans von der Burchard
“We are really at a historic juncture,” the senior EU official said, arguing that the double hit of trade disruption from U.S. subsidies and high energy prices risks turning public opinion against both the war effort and the transatlantic alliance. “America needs to realize that public opinion is shifting in many EU countries.”
The EU’s chief diplomat Josep Borrell called on Washington to respond to European concerns. “Americans — our friends — take decisions which have an economic impact on us,” he said in an interview with POLITICO.
The biggest point of tension in recent weeks has been Biden’s green subsidies and taxes that Brussels says unfairly tilt trade away from the EU and threaten to destroy European industries. Despite formal objections from Europe, Washington has so far shown no sign of backing down.
At the same time, the disruption caused by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is tipping European economies into recession, with inflation rocketing and a devastating squeeze on energy supplies threatening blackouts and rationing this winter.
As they attempt to reduce their reliance on Russian energy, EU countries are turning to gas from the U.S. instead — but the price Europeans pay is almost four times as high as the same fuel costs in America. Then there’s the likely surge in orders for American-made military kit as European armies run short after sending weapons to Ukraine.
It's all got too much for top officials in Brussels and other EU capitals. French President Emmanuel Macron said high U.S. gas prices were not “friendly” and Germany’s economy minister has called on Washington to show more “solidarity” and help reduce energy costs.
Ministers and diplomats based elsewhere in the bloc voiced frustration at the way Biden’s government simply ignores the impact of its domestic economic policies on European allies.
When EU leaders tackled Biden over high U.S. gas prices at the G20 meeting in Bali last week, the American president simply seemed unaware of the issue, according to the senior official quoted above. Other EU officials and diplomats agreed that American ignorance about the consequences for Europe was a major problem.
"The Europeans are discernibly frustrated about the lack of prior information and consultation," said David Kleimann of the Bruegel think tank.
Officials on both sides of the Atlantic recognize the risks that the increasingly toxic atmosphere will have for the Western alliance. The bickering is exactly what Putin would wish for, EU and U.S. diplomats agreed.
The growing dispute over Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — a huge tax, climate and health care package — has put fears over a transatlantic trade war high on the political agenda again. EU trade ministers are due to discuss their response on Friday as officials in Brussels draw up plans for an emergency war chest of subsidies to save European industries from collapse.
"The Inflation Reduction Act is very worrying," said Dutch Trade Minister Liesje Schreinemacher. "The potential impact on the European economy is very big."
"The U.S. is following a domestic agenda, which is regrettably protectionist and discriminates against U.S. allies," said Tonino Picula, the European Parliament's lead person on the transatlantic relationship.
An American official stressed the price setting for European buyers of gas reflects private market decisions and is not the result of any U.S. government policy or action. "U.S. companies have been transparent and reliable suppliers of natural gas to Europe," the official said. Exporting capacity has also been limited by an accident in June that forced a key facility to shut down.
In most cases, the official added, the difference between the export and import prices doesn't go to U.S. LNG exporters, but to companies reselling the gas within the EU. The largest European holder of long-term U.S. gas contracts is France's TotalEnergies for example.
It’s not a new argument from the American side but it doesn’t seem to be convincing the Europeans. "The United States sells us its gas with a multiplier effect of four when it crosses the Atlantic," European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton said on French TV on Wednesday. "Of course the Americans are our allies ... but when something goes wrong it is necessary also between allies to say it."
Cheaper energy has quickly become a huge competitive advantage for American companies, too. Businesses are planning new investments in the U.S. or even relocating their existing businesses away from Europe to American factories. Just this week, chemical multinational Solvay announced it is choosing the U.S. over Europe for new investments, in the latest of a series of similar announcements from key EU industrial giants.
Allies or not?
Despite the energy disagreements, it wasn't until Washington announced a $369 billion industrial subsidy scheme to support green industries under the Inflation Reduction Act that Brussels went into full-blown panic mode.
“The Inflation Reduction Act has changed everything," one EU diplomat said. "Is Washington still our ally or not?”
For Biden, the legislation is a historic climate achievement. "This is not a zero-sum game," the U.S. official said. "The IRA will grow the pie for clean energy investments, not split it."
But the EU sees that differently. An official from France’s foreign affairs ministry said the diagnosis is clear: These are "discriminatory subsidies that will distort competition.” French Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire this week even accused the U.S. of going down China's path of economic isolationism, urging Brussels to replicate such an approach. “Europe must not be the last of the Mohicans,” he said.
The EU is preparing its responses, such as a big subsidy push to prevent European industry from being wiped out by American rivals. "We are experiencing a creeping crisis of trust on trade issues in this relationship," said German MEP Reinhard Bütikofer.
"At some point, you have to assert yourself," said French MEP Marie-Pierre Vedrenne. "We are in a world of power struggles. When you arm-wrestle, if you are not muscular, if you are not prepared both physically and mentally, you lose.”
Behind the scenes, there is also growing irritation about the money flowing into the American defense sector.
The U.S. has by far been the largest provider of military aid to Ukraine, supplying more than $15.2 billion in weapons and equipment since the start of the war. The EU has so far provided about €8 billion of military equipment to Ukraine, according to Borrell.
According to one senior official from a European capital, restocking of some sophisticated weapons may take “years” because of problems in the supply chain and the production of chips. This has fueled fears that the U.S. defense industry can profit even more from the war.
The Pentagon is already developing a roadmap to speed up arms sales, as the pressure from allies to respond to greater demands for weapons and equipment grows.
Another EU diplomat argued that “the money they are making on weapons” could help Americans understand that making “all this cash on gas” might be “a bit too much.”
The diplomat argued that a discount on gas prices could help us to "keep united our public opinions” and to negotiate with third countries on gas supplies. “It’s not good, in terms of optics, to give the impression that your best ally is actually making huge profits out of your troubles,” the diplomat said.
JESSE WEGMAN
Is Donald Trump Ineligible to Be President?
Nov. 24, 2022
By Jesse Wegman
NYT
Mr. Wegman is a member of the editorial board.
How does a democracy protect itself against a political leader who is openly hostile to democratic self-rule? This is the dilemma the nation faces once again as it confronts a third presidential run by Donald Trump, even as he still refuses to admit he lost his second.
Of course, we shouldn’t be in this situation to begin with. The facts are well known but necessary to repeat, if only because we must never become inured to them: Abetted by a posse of low-rent lawyers, craven lawmakers and associated crackpots, Mr. Trump schemed to overturn the 2020 election by illegal and unconstitutional means. When those efforts failed, he incited a violent insurrection at the United States Capitol, causing widespread destruction, leading to multiple deaths and — for the first time in American history — interfering with the peaceful transfer of power. Almost two years later, he continues to claim, without any evidence, that he was cheated out of victory, and millions of Americans continue to believe him.
The best solution to behavior like this is the one that’s been available from the start: impeachment. The founders put it in the Constitution because they were well acquainted with the risks of corruption and abuse that come with vesting great power in a single person. Congress rightly used this tool, impeaching Mr. Trump in 2021 to hold him accountable for his central role in the Jan. 6 siege. Had the Senate convicted him as it should have, he could have been disqualified from holding public office again. But nearly all Senate Republicans came to his defense, leaving him free to run another day.
There is another, less-known solution in our Constitution to protect the country from Mr. Trump: Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars from public office anyone who, “having previously taken an oath” to support the Constitution, “engaged in insurrection or rebellion” or gave “aid or comfort” to America’s enemies.
On its face, this seems like an eminently sensible rule to put in a nation’s governing document. That’s how Representative David Cicilline of Rhode Island, who has drafted a resolution in Congress enabling the use of Section 3 against Mr. Trump, framed it. “This is America. We basically allow anyone to be president,” Mr. Cicilline told me. “We set limited disqualifications. One is, you can’t incite an insurrection against the United States. You shouldn’t get to lead a government that you tried to destroy.”
This was also the reasoning of the 14th Amendment’s framers, who intended it to serve as an aggressive response to the existential threat to the Republic posed by the losing side of the Civil War. Section 3 was Congress’s way of ensuring that unrepentant former Confederate officials — “enemies to the Union” — were not allowed to hold federal or state office again. As Representative John Bingham, one of the amendment’s lead drafters, put it in 1866, rebel leaders “surely have no right to complain if this is all the punishment the American people shall see fit to impose upon them.”
And yet despite its clarity and good sense, the provision has rarely been invoked. The first time, in the aftermath of the Civil War, it was used to disqualify thousands of Southern rebels, but within four years, Congress voted to extend amnesty to most of them. It was used again in 1919 when the House refused to seat a socialist member accused of giving aid and comfort to Germany in World War I.
In September, for the first time in more than a century, a New Mexico judge invoked Section 3, to remove from office a county commissioner, Couy Griffin, who had been convicted of entering the Capitol grounds as part of the Jan. 6 mob. This raised hopes among those looking for a way to bulletproof the White House against Mr. Trump that Section 3 might be the answer.
I count myself among this crowd. As Jan. 6 showed the world, Mr. Trump poses a unique and profound threat to the Republic: He is an authoritarian who disregards the Constitution and the rule of law and who delights in abusing his power to harm his perceived opponents and benefit himself, his family and his friends. For that reason, I am open to using any constitutional means of preventing him from even attempting to return to the White House.
At the same time, I’m torn about using this specific tool. Section 3 is extraordinarily strong medicine. Like an impeachment followed by conviction, it denies the voters their free choice of those who seek to represent them. That’s not the way democracy is designed to work.
And yet it is true, as certain conservatives never tire of reminding us, that democracy in the United States is not absolute. There are multiple checks built into our system that interfere with the expression of direct majority rule: the Senate, the Supreme Court and the Electoral College, for example. The 14th Amendment’s disqualification clause is another example — in this case, a peaceful and transparent mechanism to neutralize an existential threat to the Republic.
Nor is it antidemocratic to impose conditions of eligibility for public office. For instance, Article II of the Constitution puts the presidency off limits to anyone younger than 35. If we have decided that a 34-year-old is, by definition, not mature or reliable enough to hold such immense power, then surely we can decide the same about a 76-year-old who incited an insurrection in an attempt to keep that power.
So could Section 3 really be used to prevent Mr. Trump from running for or becoming president again? As a legal matter, it seems beyond doubt. The Capitol attack was an insurrection by any meaningful definition — a concerted, violent attempt to block Congress from performing its constitutionally mandated job of counting electoral votes. He engaged in that insurrection, even if he did not physically join the crowd as he promised he would. As top Democrats and Republicans in Congress said during and after his impeachment trial, the former president was practically and morally responsible for provoking the events of Jan. 6. The overwhelming evidence gathered and presented by the House’s Jan. 6 committee has only made clearer the extent of the plot by Mr. Trump and his associates to overturn the election — and how his actions and his failures to act led directly to the assault and allowed it to continue as long as it did. In the words of Representative Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair, Mr. Trump “summoned the mob, assembled the mob and lit the flame of this attack.”
A few legal scholars have argued that Section 3 does not apply to the presidency because it does not explicitly list that position. It is hard to square that claim with the provision’s fundamental purpose, which is to prevent insurrectionists from participating in American government. It would be bizarre in the extreme if Mr. Griffin’s behavior can disqualify him from serving as a county commissioner but not from serving as president.
It’s not the legal questions that give me pause, though; it’s the political ones.
First is the matter of how Republicans would react to Mr. Trump’s disqualification. An alarmingly large faction of the party is unwilling to accept the legitimacy of an election that its candidate didn’t win. Imagine the reaction if their standard-bearer were kept off the ballot altogether. They would thunder about a “rigged election” — and unlike all the times Mr. Trump has baselessly invoked that phrase, it would carry a measure of truth. Combine this with the increasingly violent rhetoric coming from right-wing media figures and politicians, including top Republicans, and you have the recipe for something far worse than Jan. 6. On the other hand, if partisan outrage were a barrier to invoking the law, many laws would be dead letters.
The more serious problem with Section 3 is that it is easy to see how it could morph into a caricature of what it is trying to prevent. Keeping specific candidates off the ballot is a classic move of autocrats, from Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela to Aleksandr Lukashenko in Belarus to Vladimir Putin. It sends the message that voters cannot be trusted to choose their leaders wisely — if at all. And didn’t we just witness Americans around the country using their voting power to repudiate Mr. Trump’s Big Lie and reject the most dangerous election deniers? Shouldn’t we let elections take their course and give the people the chance to (again) reject Mr. Trump at the ballot box?
To help me resolve my ambivalence, I called Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland, who sits on the Jan. 6 committee and taught constitutional law before joining Congress. He acknowledged what he called an understandable “queasiness” about invoking Section 3 to keep Mr. Trump off the ballot. But Mr. Raskin argued that this queasiness is built into the provision. “What was the constitutional bargain struck in Section 3?” he asked. “There would be a very minor incursion into the right of the people to elect exactly who they want, in order to obtain much greater security for the constitutional order against those who have demonstrated a propensity to want to overthrow it when it is to their advantage.”
The contours of the case for Mr. Trump’s disqualification might get stronger yet, as the Justice Department and state prosecutors continue to pursue multiple criminal investigations into him and his associates and as the Jan. 6 committee prepares to release its final report. While he would not be prohibited from running for office even if he was under criminal indictment, it would be more politically palatable to invoke Section 3 in that case and even more so if he was convicted.
I still believe that the ideal way for Mr. Trump to be banished for good would be via the voters. This scenario is democracy’s happy ending. After all, self-government is not a place; it is a choice, and an ongoing one. If Americans are going to keep making that choice — in favor of fair and equal representation, in favor of institutions that venerate the rule of law and against the threats of authoritarian strongmen — they do it best by themselves. That is why electoral victory is the ultimate political solution to the ultimate political problem. It worked that way in 2020, when an outright majority of voters rejected Mr. Trump and replaced him with Joe Biden.
But it’s essential to remember that not all democracies have happy endings. Which brings us to the most unsettling answer to the question I began with: Sometimes a democracy doesn’t protect itself. There is no rule that says democracies will perpetuate themselves indefinitely. Many countries, notably Hungary and Turkey, have democratically undone themselves by electing leaders who then dismantled most of the rights and privileges people tend to expect from democratic government. Section 3 is in the Constitution precisely to help ensure that America does not fall into that trap.
Whether or not invoking Section 3 succeeds, the best argument for it is to take the Constitution at its word. “We undermine the importance of the Constitution if we pick and choose what rules apply,” Mr. Cicilline told me. “One of the ways we rebuild confidence in American democracy is to remind people we have a Constitution and that it has in it provisions that say who can run for public office. You don’t get to apply the Constitution sometimes or only if you feel like it. We take an oath. We swear to uphold it. We don’t swear to uphold most of it. If Donald Trump has taught us anything, it’s about protecting the Constitution of the United States.”
Surely the remedy of Section 3 is worth pursuing only in the most extraordinary circumstances. Just as surely, the events surrounding Jan. 6 clear that bar. If inciting a violent insurrection to keep oneself in office against the will of the voters isn’t such a circumstance, what is?
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https://www.lemonde.fr/en/economy/article/2022/11/25/riots-at-world-s-largest-iphone-factory-in-china-reveal-the-limits-of-zero-covid_6005631_19.html
In China, riots at world's largest iPhone factory reveal the limits of zero-Covid policy
Workers at Foxconn, Apple's main subcontractor, have denounced the company's unfulfilled promises of bonuses and its strict quarantine conditions for new employees.
By Simon Leplâtre (Shanghai (China) correspondent) and Alexandre Piquard
Published on November 25, 2022 at 14h30, updated at 16h28 on November 25, 2022
In this Nov. 23, 2022 photo, protesters face security personnel wearing white protective clothing inside the Foxconn Technology Group factory, which assembles most of Apple's iPhones, in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan province. AP
Illuminated by the dim light of street lamps, a compact crowd of workers brandishing iron bars pushes back a small troop of police officers, wrapped in protective white hazmat suits. In the many videos of these protests shared on social networks, blows rain down on workers and shouts resound: "the police are hitting people," "pay our wages," "down with Foxconn," and "defend your rights." Since Tuesday, November 22, and for at least 48 hours, thousands of workers at Foxconn, which assembles Apple's iPhones, have been protesting to demand the payment of promised bonuses for new recruits, while production has been disrupted by restrictions related to China's zero-Covid policy. Other videos, quickly censored, show workers being beaten up by those in hazmat suits, being taken away by the police, or being injured.
After two days of clashes, Foxconn decided to buy peace by offering, on Thursday 24 November, 10,000 yuan (€1,340), or about two months' salary, to those who would choose to return home. The company also apologized for "an input error in the computer system and guarantee that the actual salary corresponds to what was promised in the recruitment advertisements," they said in a statement. The error is expected to cost Foxconn and Apple, which depends on the Zhengzhou factory for 80% of its latest iPhone 14s. In early November, the Apple brand had already acknowledged production delays due to the outbreak of Covid-19 within the giant Zhengzhou campus, nicknamed "iPhone City."
At the end of October, tens of thousands of Foxconn employees fled the site where cases of Covid-19 were multiplying, denouncing the chaotic management of the situation: spartan conditions, a lack of food, and a lack of responsiveness to prevent the spread of the virus. A real city within a city, with about 200,000 employees, the Foxconn factory had been operating in a closed circuit since the first cases were recorded in mid-October. Images broadcast on local television networks showed workers climbing factory barriers before walking dozens of kilometers to get home. Since then, Foxconn launched a major recruitment campaign in the middle of the iPhone production season and in the run-up to Christmas. The company had increased wages and promised attractive bonuses of 3,000 yuan (€402) per employee.
Authoritarian management
In this November 23, 2022 photo, protesters face security personnel wearing white protective hazmat suits inside the Foxconn Technology Group factory, which assembles most of Apple's iPhones, in Zhengzhou, central China's Henan province. AP
To meet the massive needs of the province's largest employer, the Henan authorities had even begun to intervene, pushing surrounding neighborhood officials to send their unemployed residents. To set an example, members of the Chinese Communist Party were the first to respond. For China, it's all about keeping its first position in global supply chains. But the efforts of local governments, combined with those of many private recruitment agencies that usually work for Foxconn, seem to have worked too well: in mid-November, the company claimed to have recruited 100,000 applicants, and on November 21, the company suspended its campaign in the face of an influx of applicants, all of whom had to undergo four days of quarantine off-site and then seven days on-site before they could be hired. "There are too many new people, the logistics are not in place, the beds are full. And if, after four days of quarantine, you are not deemed fit for work, you are fired without pay!" testified an employee on Douyin (the Chinese version of TikTok). It's not hard to imagine the frustration of candidates traveling from far away, rejected without compensation after several days of quarantine...
In 2010, the company responded to a series of suicides at its Shenzhen site by installing nets under windows
Foxconn, the main subcontractor for Apple and other electronics giants, is known for its authoritarian management methods. In 2010, the company reacted to a series of suicides at its Shenzhen site (in southeastern China) by installing nets under windows. Since then, the Taiwanese outsourcing giant has been accused of other worrying working conditions, including the illegal employment of underage trainees. They're repeated scandals that call into question the responsibility of Apple. "We have representatives from Apple's teams on-site at the [Zhengzhou factory of subcontractor Foxconn]. We are examining the situation and working closely with Foxconn to ensure that the employees' claims are answered," the American company said on Thursday.
Apple's dependence on China
The tensions at the Zhengzhou factory once again highlight the problem of Western companies' dependence on foreign manufacturers, like Apple with China. Foxconn provides 70% of the production of its flagship product, the iPhone. And the Zhengzhou factory produces 80% of the iPhone 14, the latest iPhone model, according to technology market analysis firm Counterpoint. China's zero-Covid policy has been an "uppercut" for the US company, according to Wedbush Securities Analyst Dan Ives, predicting delivery delays and a drop in iPhone 14 production that could push the number of devices sold during Black Friday on down from 10 million to 8 million units.
Paris and Berlin are starting to move beyond their differences
After a week of bilateral meetings aimed at easing weeks-long tensions, France's prime minister is visiting Berlin for the first time on Friday, November 25.
By Thomas Wieder (Berlin (Germany) correspondent)
Published on November 25, 2022 at 14h00, updated at 14h00 on November 25, 2022
Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, during a meeting on the sidelines of the climate summit, in Sharm El-Sheikh (Egypt), on November 7, 2022. LUDOVIC MARIN / AP
After some serious malfunctions, the Franco-German engine is starting up again. Within the space of a week, no less than four German ministers (transport, foreign affairs, economy and finance) visited Paris. On Friday, November 25, the French Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne, will head to Berlin where she will be received by the German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, followed by the Vice Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck. This visit was preceded by that of Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak who was in Berlin on Thursday for the opening of the 22nd Berlin French Film Week, alongside her German counterpart, Claudia Roth.
One month after the cancellation of the Franco-German Council of Ministers, scheduled for October 26 just outside of Paris, and Mr. Macron's stern words in Brussels on October 20 – "It is not a good thing for Europe for Germany to isolate itself" – there is a clear will to resume dialogue between the two countries. "We undoubtedly went too far in showing our disagreement," observed one French minister. "Therefore it is urgent to find our common ground again, especially after the G20 summit [on November 15 and 16, in Bali, Indonesia] which reminded us how important it is to be united at the European level, and therefore, above all, between the French and the Germans."
On both sides, there are many signs of respect. In Paris on Monday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock not only met with her counterpart, Catherine Colonna, for an exchange with young people at a central Paris high school, but she also met with Mr. Macron at the Elysée Palace. On the same day, the Economy Minister, Bruno Le Maire, had dinner with Mr. Habeck, before accompanying him the next day to a meeting with the French president. He also had dinner on Thursday with Christian Lindner, the German finance minister, who was also visiting the French capital.
'Close ties'
On the German side, there is a clear desire to dispel misunderstandings. At the end of September, the French government did not appreciate not having been informed in advance of the €200 billion aid plan announced by Mr. Scholz to deal with surging energy prices. To settle the dispute, the German ambassador to France, Hans-Dieter Lucas, on November 19, wrote a column in the regional French newspaper Ouest-France, that this plan was not an "unfair attempt to benefit German industry," contrary to accusations that has been made in several European capitals, including Paris.
In recent weeks, a certain annoyance had also surfaced on the French side, with regard to Ms. Baerbock when she said she would be on vacation on the day scheduled for the Franco-German council of ministers in Fontainebleau. Since then, the head of German diplomacy has not missed an opportunity to put this blunder behind her.
At a hearing of the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly on November 7, she stayed twice as long as planned to discuss with one hundred MPs from both countries gathered in the Bundestag. "Our ties with France are closer than with any other country," she said, before making an unexpected comparison: "You can sometimes yell at your spouse for not putting the cap back on the toothpaste tube. But the value of a relationship is that you don't get angry about these things. It is this trust that I feel every day in the partnership between our two countries."
While there have been no sensational announcements, the intense exchanges of the last few days have allowed France and Germany to show their closeness on a few issues. At a joint press conference on Tuesday at France's Finance Ministry, Mr. Le Maire and Mr. Habeck denounced with equal vigor the threat to the competitiveness of European industries posed by US President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act.
In a joint statement, the two ministers also emphasized the dominant role that Paris and Berlin have said they intend to play so that the European Union can strengthen "its strategic sovereignty in energy and industry." They also announced the launch of bilateral cooperation and working groups in sectors such as hydrogen, artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, space policy, quantum computing and the supply of raw materials.
A 'new impetus for the Franco-German relationship'
This shared willingness to emphasize common ground rather than highlight disagreements obviously does not mean that disagreements no longer exist. "Issues that were complicated a month ago are still complicated despite some progress, such as on the Future Air Combat System [FCAS] where the pressure exerted by politicians has allowed manufacturers to overcome certain stumbling blocks," acknowledged one diplomat. "After the frosty spell of the last few weeks, everyone seems to have understood that it is urgent to revive the spirit of bilateralism. We had reached a point where the accumulation of misunderstandings made the Franco-German relationship sound like a broken record."
In Berlin as in Paris, this proliferation of ministerial meetings seems all the more necessary since relations between Mr. Macron and Mr. Scholz, while cordial, lack fluidity. Perceived in Paris as "cold," "distant" and "elusive," the chancellor remains a "complicated" interlocutor for the French president, according to those close to him. This explains why Mr. Macron also wants to maintain personal ties with other major figures in the German government, such as Mr. Habeck and Ms. Baerbock, whom he met at a dinner in Munich in February 2020, when they were co-chairs of the Greens. "On most European issues, except nuclear, the Greens are the best allies of France within the German government. It remains to be seen whether they will look a little more towards Paris, because their first reflex so far has been to turn towards Brussels," observed one diplomat.
Intended to give "new impetus to Franco-German relations," an expression used in both Paris and Berlin, this week, packed full of bilateral meetings, was, according to general opinion, more than necessary to prepare for the next major event that the two governments cannot afford to miss: the 60th anniversary of the Elysée Treaty, signed on January 22, 1963, by Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer. The anniversary marks the signing of the treaty of friendship between France and West Germany and could coincide with the Franco-German Council of Ministers, postponed three times since July. It is hoped the meeting will result in major announcements, at the Elysée Palace even more than at the German Chancellery, on the two most complicated issues of the moment: defense and energy.