France and Germany take back the reins when Britain leaves the EU’s economic orbit

Instead, as the United Kingdom prepares to leave the EU’s economic orbit on January 1, the EU has regained confidence, helped in part by a revived Franco-German partnership and encouraged by the early arrival of the Biden government in Washington. Meanwhile, Paris, now the dominant actor in the bloc’s foreign policy, is fueling the debate on everything from relations with Washington and Moscow to the expansion of the EU’s military capabilities.

Last week’s Brexit deal is expected to be approved by EU governments on Tuesday and by the British parliament on Wednesday to allow it to enter into force provisionally on Friday. The European Parliament will examine the 1,246-page agreement, published in full on Saturday for the first time, in the new year. Leading EU lawmakers from the bloc’s largest parties have already welcomed the deal.

During several years of bitter Brexit negotiations, many feared that the failure of the EU and the UK to reach an agreement on their future relations could poison bilateral ties, even threatening the UK’s still considerable contributions to security. European – from the Baltic States to the anti-terrorism campaign in the Sahel, Africa.

Britain’s dominance on the continent, long a useful channel for Washington to influence the EU’s plans on trade, tax and foreign policy priorities, has been greatly diminished. However, Thursday’s agreement between Britain and the EU on future economic, trade and security ties should prevent a permanent split between America’s European allies.

Britain’s repeated political crises since the referendum have increased, according to opinion polls, other countries’ support for EU membership. Many populist anti-EU advocates now call for reform, rather than giving up, of the bloc.

This year, the EU agreed to a huge recovery fund to help the bloc emerge from its crush on the coronavirus – an unthinkable deal a few years ago. With a Brexit deal now pocketed, some officials believe the EU has turned the corner.

“We show that if we are really under pressure, we do things,” said Michael Clauss, Germany’s ambassador to the EU, in December. “So we face the challenges, which is why, psychologically too, we all feel that we are in a stronger position now.”

At the heart of the eurozone’s revival is the Franco-German partnership, which gained momentum with the departure of the only EU member country that was the same in economic and strategic terms.

Just a year ago, France and Germany clashed on many of Europe’s biggest challenges.

Germany had diluted most of French President Emmanuel Macron’s comprehensive proposals to reform the eurozone, France was blocking EU enlargement, German Chancellor Angela Merkel was resisting Macron’s criticisms of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, while Berlin was suspicious of Paris’ efforts to unfreeze ties with Russia.

That changed this spring.

Shedding a decade of opposition to the issuance of common debt, in May Merkel supported a proposal for the European Commission, the EU executive, to issue debt to finance a rescue package that would distribute hundreds of billions of euros to member states to help them during the pandemic.

Two months later, the EU agreed to a € 750 billion program, equivalent to $ 920 billion.

If the UK was still a member of the EU, the bloc might have been able to pull the UK out of the fund. Still, British lawmakers would have been forced to give the EU executive new fiscal powers, something they would be reluctant to do.

With the departure of Britain, France, also a nuclear power and a member of the UN Security Council with veto power, is one of the few European countries with a global military presence and a willingness to deploy it.

Mr. Macron has launched a program of strategic autonomy, which includes the development of military capabilities to allow the EU to operate independently of major powers such as China and the USA. With Berlin, it is looking to strengthen the EU’s defense sector and offer stronger protections for industries.

France has imposed a hard line on a growing conflict between the EU and Turkey over natural gas resources and Ankara’s military movements in its neighborhood. Mr. Macron continued his work in Moscow, despite the poisoning of opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

There is caution about Macron’s policies in some parts of the bloc, especially in any measures that undermine NATO. However, without Britain, these concerns are put aside.

“On European defense, it’s coming out in a very French way,” said Ian Bond, director of foreign policy at the Center for European Reform. “Strategic autonomy would not have gone as far as it did if the British were still at the table.”

For Washington, this can create challenges, even when EU leaders say they are looking forward to working with President-elect Joe Biden. For years, the United Kingdom has blocked EU efforts that it feared would undermine or duplicate NATO’s work. Britain has also become a much more outspoken critic of China and would probably have pushed the EU towards closer coordination with the US in the challenges that Beijing presents.

Instead, the EU is betting on an intermediate position. Brussels recently started a formal dialogue with the United States about China. Even so, the EU, under pressure from Berlin, is currently close to concluding a broad investment agreement with Beijing, prompting warnings from Biden’s team.

Eroding the EU’s renewed confidence are doubts about the strength and resilience of the revived Franco-German partnership.

Paris and Berlin still disagree about eurozone reforms, a weakness that authorities fear may leave it vulnerable to a new financial or banking crisis in the single currency area. The EU powers have failed to end the bloc’s differences in migration policy or to heal a toxic rift between east and west over the application of the rule of law and democratic freedoms.

Next year, Merkel, chancellor for a decade and a half, is due to retire. Some see a new period of uncertainty, even with German diplomats insisting that Berlin’s European policy will not change much.

“The underlying conflicts in the EU have not disappeared,” said Fabian Zuleeg, chief executive of the European Policy Center, based in Brussels. “Just removing an actor … can mean that there is one less source of conflict. This does not mean that we are able to make leaps in integration. “

Write to Laurence Norman at [email protected]