(Bloomberg) — Emmanuel Macron has spent weeks rubbing European Union allies the wrong way. Germany has finally had enough.Angela Merkel, usually measured, deployed the full power of her words on Wednesday night to say she would exert intense pressure on France to allow two western Balkan nations to begin negotiations to join the EU. This came after Macron had vetoed their accession efforts and moved to make it tougher for the bloc to accept new members.“I want to tell the states of the western Balkans that they too have a prospect for membership in the European Union. That’s what they should know from here, from Zagreb,” Merkel said from the Croatian capital. “We will live up to that, we will make that happen.”The rebuke comes as the French leader seeks to exert greater influence on EU policy. In addition to blocking the start of accession negotiations with Albania and North Macedonia, Macron went against all his counterparts earlier this year in objecting to a long extension of the Brexit deadline.And in an interview this month, he further angered his allies by calling for a wholesale change in Europe’s security architecture and questioning the efficacy of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s collective defense clause.The timing of Merkel’s comments is significant, mere days before her domestic party convention and ahead of NATO’s anniversary summit in London. Her voice once carried more weight than anyone else in the 28-nation bloc, but Macron is vying for that role. Her political career is coming to an end while his is taking off. Together, Germany and France, have dominated the EU agenda.Nations with complicated histories that aspire to join the bloc look to Merkel, who grew up under Communism, for support.Macron wielded a veto last month to block the EU’s plan to start membership negotiations with North Macedonia and Albania during a meeting of the bloc’s leaders. Macron argued that no date should be set for opening accession deliberations until the EU revamps its entire enlargement approach.European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker called the inconclusive EU summit a “major historical error.” European Council President Donald Tusk, who chaired the meeting, sought to reassure the Balkan nations not to give up. “Both countries have the right to start EU negotiations,” Tusk said.Germany has argued that the prospect of EU entry talks for the two nations would bolster geopolitical stability in the historically volatile Balkans. Merkel said on Wednesday that the Western Balkan countries needed to have a realistic accession perspective.“We must now talk with France, and we will do this very intensely, about which elements exactly will have to be improved or changed in the accession process,” Merkel told reporters. “We want an agreement about this as soon as possible so that we will be able to make progress in the concrete cases.”Strengthening NATOSeparately, on the same day, her top diplomat brought Germany’s own ideas about reforming NATO — that were a far cry from the radical rethink Macron envisions. Foreign Minister Heiko Maas suggested a group of experts could offer advice on transatlantic security challenges: “We want above all in this process to make clear that NATO functions and has a future.”In an interview with The Economist, Macron memorably said that “what we are currently experiencing is the brain death of NATO.”The effort to bolster the organization comes after the U.S. withdrew forces from northeastern Syria, giving Turkey a green light to get involved. Neither country consulted with their fellow NATO partners before acting — and that infuriated Macron.But Merkel was not on board with the French president’s damning assessment. For her, NATO remains “irreplaceable.”“The French President has chosen drastic words,” she said earlier this month. “This is not my view of cooperation within NATO.”–With assistance from Caroline Alexander.To contact the reporters on this story: Arne Delfs in Berlin at [email protected];Ian Wishart in Brussels at [email protected] contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Sills at [email protected], Richard Bravo, Flavia Krause-JacksonFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
