William Drozdiak is nonresident senior fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at The Brookings Institution and the author of “The Last President of Europe: Emmanuel Macron’s Race to Revive France and Save the World” ( Hachette/PublicAffairs, April 2020).
When I met with Emmanuel Macron last September, the youthful French president appeared on the brink of despair. He was struggling in vain to persuade other European leaders to coalesce behind a strategic vision that would ensure Europe could defend its future interests in a resurgent big-power rivalry with Russia, China and the United States.
His impatience showed as he described his frustrations in getting other European leaders to share his urgency in preparing for the next big crisis to test Europe.
“A quoi bon? A quoi bon?” he said, mimicking the response from his fellow leaders in the European Union.
They had just emerged from three agonizing years negotiating the departure of the United Kingdom. Europe was comfortably affluent, the challenge from far-right nationalists appeared to be receding, and any immediate threats from outside powers seemed reasonably well-contained.
Macron has pleaded with his fellow EU leaders to seize the deepening crisis as an opportunity to accelerate the drive toward a more integrated continent
Life was good. Why get so worked up about an existential European crisis that may lie beyond the horizon?
Macron told me he feared such complacency could soon lead to Europe’s demise as a political project. “When the next major crisis occurs, we may not be ready,” he said. “Empires and countries have disappeared in the past. The same thing could happen again. Before we know it, Europe could be obliterated.”
Now, amid a pandemic that has cost tens of thousands of lives and ground the bloc’s economy to a halt, Macron’s moment of truth for Europe has arrived with sudden and shocking morbidity.
The coronavirus epidemic has already exacted an enormous human toll and overwhelmed Europe’s vaunted health care systems. But its more lasting impact may risk the destruction of Europe’s decades-old dream to build a federation of prosperous democracies, united by their belief in a common destiny and forging a new age of enlightenment in the 21st century, if countries fail to come together with a plan to tackle the fallout.
Even once the immediate health crisis subsides, Europe will be reeling for years from the debilitating effects of prolonged lockdowns that effectively have put their economies into a coma.
Macron has pleaded with his fellow EU leaders to seize the deepening crisis as an opportunity to accelerate the drive toward a more integrated continent, starting with a strong demonstration of solidarity and generosity between rich and poor states.
But at this stage of the crisis, Macron’s vision of a cohesive political community that protects and defends its 450 million European citizens seems more distant than ever.
The crisis has exposed and reactivated old faultlines, including a deep cleavage between North and South. Those differences were on display in a virtual summit last week, when EU leaders failed to resolve their deep divisions over a recovery fund to help members in Southern Europe cope with disastrous impact of the pandemic.
Italy and Spain, backed by France, have demanded a massive trillion-euro fund that would involve the direct transfer of funds to keep their economies afloat, financed in large part by wealthy Northern states such as Germany and the Netherlands. They insist that the money must come in the form of grants, and not loans, which would only pile more crushing debts on them.
A similar conflict a decade ago over how wealthy EU countries should come to the rescue of their poorer, indebted partners in the South during the Great Recession nearly caused the break-up of the European single currency.
Southern countries were eventually bailed out with loans that required austerity measures that caused enormous economic pain that still resonates today. In the case of Greece, resentments only festered once its citizens realized much of the bailout money would be used to rescue German and French banks from bad loans.
The French president has also attempted to act as an intermediary between North and South | Stephane Mahe/AFP via Getty Images
Besides the North vs. South conflict over a pandemic recovery fund, the EU also faces a potential democracy crisis. Hungary and Poland are breaking with their EU allies and rapidly becoming authoritarian regimes in the heart of Central Europe that spurn democratic norms like a free press and independent judiciary.
Both governments have repelled punitive efforts by their wealthy Western counterparts to slash billions of euros worth of regional subsidies designed to bolster their living standards.
Macron has tried without success to heal these conflicts. He pleaded on several occasions with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán to conform to democratic norms, only to see Orbán thumb his nose at his requests because he knows he can count on Poland to veto any efforts to curtail EU funds.
The French president has also attempted to act as an intermediary between North and South, imploring German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte to step forward with substantial aid pledges to Southern partners battered by the pandemic or risk a rupture in the union.
Macron is still struggling to make his case that Europe must become an integrated political community.
Although Merkel has since relaxed her stance somewhat, both leaders have rejected any plan that involves outright grants to alleviate the hardship of their European neighbors. They fear taxpayer revolts at home that may be exploited by right-wing extremist parties and invoking “moral hazard,” claiming that any steps toward sharing debts would be tantamount to rewarding foolish actions that pushed Greece, Spain and Italy into financial trouble.
Failing to resolve these differences risks fueling an anti-European backlash that is already building in Italy and Spain and would play into the hands of populist nationalists, who ask: What good is the EU if its members refuse to show empathy and economic support during their hour of desperation?
As of now, Macron is still struggling to make his case that Europe must become an integrated political community and not devolve into a loose free-trade zone if it’s going to survive the fallout from this crisis.
Over the past 70 years, the EU has thrived as one of the great success stories in ensuring peace and prosperity across much of the Continent. It would be a historic tragedy if, at a time when France is being led by its most pro-European leader in recent history, the dream of a unified Europe should vanish because of the narrow selfish interests of its wealthiest nations.