The recent effort by France, the United Kingdom, and Germany to create a financial mechanism designed to bypass U.S. extraterritorial sanctions on Iran reveals an increasing need for self-assertion vis-à-vis the United States. For months, Europeans have been seeking ways to preserve the nuclear deal despite President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from it. Their efforts have less to do with policy towards Tehran than with positioning the European Union in relation to the U.S., and with visions of Europe itself as an international player. ...

France and Germany recently decided to share the presidency of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and jointly do the agenda-setting and public communication tasks it involves, over the next two months. What could be an important symbol appears, however, more like a smokescreen to conceal the two partners’ skirmishes over their respective UN seats. The Germans wish to see France’s permanent member status Europeanized—in other words, transferred to the European Union as a whole. Paris continues to respond to such suggestions with a resounding non. At first glance, this disagreement might look like French national “egoism” standing in the way of Germany’s splendid ambitions for Europe. On closer inspection, however, it is rather the other way around. ...

After a virtually faultless first year in office, French President Emmanuel Macron has faced more difficult times in recent months. Admittedly, his speeches are as eloquent as ever—about the international order, about France, and about Europe—and he is still much appreciated worldwide as the defender of multilateralism (at the United Nations), of the environment (recently awarded “champion of the Earth”), and of economic righteousness (the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development welcome his market-liberal proposed reforms). Nevertheless, “his people,” as he likes to refer to his fellow citizens in the foreign media, seem today distinctly lacking enthusiasm. 

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The quarrel of a bluffer and a buffoon over a nonsensical idea. One could caricature in these terms the controversy that took place, by means of interviews and tweets, between the French and American presidents after the former floated the murky concept of a so-called European army. It is hard to say exactly what motivated the French president at that moment, knowing that if there is a country for which the pooling of European forces would mean a net loss, not to say a fatal disaster, it is France. No doubt Emmanuel Macron is fully aware of this, in which case he must have found that the greatest merit of the concept is that it has no chance to become a reality. It also had all the potential to irritate President Trump, incidentally. ...

The recent entry into office of the new Italian government was received, in media and financial circles, as well as by most European leaders, with a mixture of indignation and concern. How could Italy—one of the founding members of the Union and its birthplace due to the Treaty of Rome—bring to power Eurosceptic, anti-establishment forces likely to jeopardize the stability of the euro and to create unprecedented tensions within the EU? The alliance between the far-right League and the Five Star Movement (M5S) stemming from a leftist, anti-globalization ideology, is regarded by many as the unfortunate confirmation of the rise of all kinds of “populisms” and therefore as a reversal of the virtuous pro-European momentum generated by last year’s election of French President Emmanuel Macron. ...