French President Emmanuel Macron took part in a wreath-laying ceremony at Germany’s memorial to the victims of war and dictatorship.
Macron stood with folded hands and bowed head alongside German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the Neue Wache memorial in Berlin as part of Germany’s annual national day of remembrance.
Macron is visiting as both he and Merkel are lagging in the polls and need some mutual reinforcement and support.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Earlier, he had joined Steinmeier at the “Youth for Peace” event, where youngsters presented “100 ideas for peace.
The French president was to speak in the German parliament later in the day and then meet with Merkel on European and international issues.
Merkel has offered support for Macron’s proposal for a European army, in the face of criticism from US President Donald Trump.
Photo: EPA-EFE
As the world has remembered World War I, which ended a century ago this month, Macron has repeatedly invoked its horrors to drive home his message that rising nationalism around the globe is again destabilizing the world.
He has suggested building a future European army as a symbol of a united continent.
Both Macron and Merkel have said Europe needs to depend less on others — such as the US — for its defense.
It is at least in part a response to Trump’s disruption of the status quo in the NATO alliance by raising doubts about US willingness to pay for other countries’ defense.
However, ceremonial appearances and good words cannot paper over persistent differences between their approaches to the EU’s economic issues.
For example, Germany and France have apparently struck a deal on a common budget for the EU countries that use the shared euro currency, something Macron has been pushing for.
German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur that the deal was to be presented to European finance ministers today, and that he hoped it would find agreement.
The size of the budget — mentioned by French Minister of Finance Bruno Le Maire as 20 billion to 25 billion euros (US$22.8 billion to US$28.6 billion) — is far short of Macron’s idea. It is only 0.2 percent of the eurozone economy, far short of the several percentage points of GDP originally mentioned by Macron.
The compromise underscores German reluctance to sign off on anything seen as transferring taxpayer money from richer countries like Germany to more fiscally shaky ones such as Italy or Greece.
The two sides have also not agreed on a tax on digital companies such as Amazon and Google.
The French and the European Commission have proposed such a tax, but Scholz said the issue should be left with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Since the OECD includes the US, and such a tax would hit US tech firms, prospects for a deal there are less than clear.
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