法国重返欧洲
https://ip-quarterly.com/en/frances-pivot-europe
欧盟在 2024 年似乎迷失了方向。当需要领导力时，德国总理转向华盛顿。剩下的就是法国总统埃马纽埃尔·马克龙。
Jacob Ross 2024 年 3 月 22 日
2024 年春季刊：欧洲的投票，欧洲的未来
2024 年春季，德国总理奥拉夫·肖尔茨再次面临来自国内和国外的大量批评。在年初以欧洲领导人的身份出现，强调德国在援助乌克兰方面发挥主导作用并呼吁欧盟盟友采取更多行动之后，“金牛座辩论”现在再次追上了他。他拒绝采取主动并同意向乌克兰交付强大的巡航导弹，这加剧了国内外对德国转变的严肃性的怀疑，即所谓的“时间转变”。
德国作为平民大国，欧盟作为和平项目——这两项原则都受到俄罗斯帝国主义的挑战，俄罗斯在 21 世纪继续以武力转移边界。为此，需要德国在欧洲发挥领导作用，但迹象并不好。在距离下次联邦选举还有 18 个月的情况下，Körber 基金会进行的一项调查显示，72% 的德国受访者支持增加国防资金并实现北约将 GDP 的 2% 用于安全的目标，66% 的人支持进一步向乌克兰运送武器。然而，71% 的人拒绝让德国在欧洲发挥军事领导作用——这一数字在总理府可能众所周知。
调查结果反映了欧洲对德国政府的旧批评，这与 Scholz 及其前任有关。资金充足，德国人可以维持现状。但在开发新想法、向前迈进以及在不断变化的世界中重新定位欧盟方面，柏林是不可信赖的。现任政府的联合协议在纸面上极具野心，并规定就“欧洲联邦国家”的道路进行讨论。然而，中左翼社会民主党 (SPD)、绿党和亲商界的自由民主党 (FDP) 之间的争端以及布鲁塞尔所谓的“德国投票”（由于三个执政党意见不一致而被迫弃权）并没有推动相应的改革，现在比以往任何时候都更加阻碍了这一进程。许多欧盟伙伴的印象是，德国阻碍了变革。
法国的失望
随着柏林退出，人们的目光转向巴黎，埃马纽埃尔·马克龙总统希望在那里领导欧洲。从 2017 年 9 月在索邦大学的演讲到 2023 年 5 月在布拉迪斯拉发的演讲，在他担任总统期间，留下欧洲政策遗产的愿望是显而易见的。在此期间，法德和欧洲取得了一些显著的成功：2017 年启动了大型军备项目； 2019 年，一项雄心勃勃的新双边条约在亚琛签署；2022 年，法国担任欧盟理事会主席国期间，战略指南针被采纳。此后不久，欧盟成员国签署了加强欧盟军备工业的“凡尔赛议程”。
尽管如此，马克龙离他的最终目标还很远。欧盟今天根本不是主权国家。这位法国总统特别指责奥拉夫·肖尔茨，因为自俄罗斯对乌克兰开战以来，欧盟的共同安全与防务政策 (CSDP) 几乎没有取得任何进展，除了新的融资手段。2017 年的团结时刻已经消失。当时，时任德国总理安格拉·默克尔在唐纳德·特朗普就任美国总统几个月后与特朗普举行了首次会晤，她说：“我们完全可以依赖别人的时代已经结束了。”默克尔显然指的是美国，巴黎人竖起了耳朵。她在 2017 年 5 月，也就是马克龙当选后不久发表讲话，这意味着法德在安全政策方面建立主权欧盟的历史性倡议的基础似乎已经到位。
然而，默克尔没有跟进。最迟从 2022 年 2 月开始，她的继任者奥拉夫·舒尔茨就毫不掩饰他想再次与华盛顿尽可能紧密地联系在一起的意图。这是回归冷战时期的德国身份——也是对 2017 年立场的修改。因此，这一时期的法德协议受到了根本性的质疑。从法国的角度来看，未来作战航空系统 (FCAS) 和主地面作战系统 (MGCS) 军备项目基于这样的信念：从长远来看，欧盟必须在 21 世纪独自维护自己的权利。《亚琛条约》包含双边互助条款，两国武装部队将更接近“共同文化”，这并非巧合。现在人们对特朗普可能重返白宫的担忧使这些考虑变得更加紧迫。
一个难缠的盟友
巴黎正在积极为特朗普第二次担任总统做准备。然而，与 2017 年不同，马克龙现在对他的欧洲伙伴的不信任已经习以为常。法国对领导地位的宣称有着悠久而复杂的历史，可以追溯到法国发起的欧洲防务共同体 (EDC)，该共同体于 1954 年因法国国民议会的抵制而失败。1966 年，当时由戴高乐领导的法国在拥有自己的核威慑力量后离开了北约的军事指挥结构。1989 年柏林墙倒塌时，许多法国政客预计北约将终结，他们认为北约是多余的。同时，他们对欧盟随后的发展犹豫不决，尤其是 2004 年的东扩和小成员国的日益增长的影响力。
几十年来，法国在西方联盟结构（无论是欧盟还是北约）中的影响力一直受到戴高乐主义遗产的影响。法国对国家主权的所谓无条件坚持，使得法国提出的更多合作倡议至今仍不可信，这一点在安全和防务政策中表现得非常明显。那些不断强调自己可以独立完成一切的人很难培养合作伙伴。自俄罗斯入侵乌克兰以来，马克龙和他的政府就一再被这一障碍所困扰，最近一次是在讨论法国核威慑力量可能欧洲化的过程中。到目前为止，没有任何一个伙伴，无论是欧盟还是北约，能够想象出由法国主导的现有美国核保护伞的替代方案。
自 2017 年以来，马克龙还本能地遵循戴高乐主义的格言，认为国际政治是“多极的”，并希望不惜一切代价阻止新的集团形成。一个突出的例子——还有更多——是他关于欧盟在中国和美国之间的独立立场的声明，他在 2023 年 4 月访华归来时用这个声明来冷落他的西方伙伴。马克龙知道，这些立场在今天的法国仍然很受欢迎。毕竟，法国外交近年来最大的成功不是 2015 年的《巴黎气候协定》，而是 2003 年法国对美国入侵伊拉克说“不”，以及时任外交部长多米尼克·德维尔潘在联合国安理会的讲话。
第一次改变方向
尽管马克龙致力于法国外交政策的戴高乐主义指导方针，但他最近改变了方向，最显著的变化是他在布拉迪斯拉发的讲话。法国总统成为乌克兰和格鲁吉亚加入北约的倡导者，这无异于 2023 年的一场革命。很快就有人谈论布拉迪斯拉发的“反布加勒斯特时刻”，暗指法国（和德国）历史上反对这两个国家加入北约，这在 2008 年北约布加勒斯特峰会上引起了争议。从那时起，政府代表就喜欢谈论“布拉迪斯拉发议程”，这与法国传统的外交和安全政策立场背道而驰。
马克龙本人似乎从过去的错误中吸取了教训。在布拉迪斯拉发，他首先修改了自己 2019 年对北约“脑死亡”的诊断。俄罗斯对乌克兰的袭击是一次“电击”，使跨大西洋联盟（而不是欧盟）复活。“布拉迪斯拉发议程”没有坚持对欧盟主权的历史要求，也没有用对北约的争论性言论冒犯其合作伙伴，而是代表了法国外交政策的新实用主义，试图适应欧洲大陆不断变化的地缘政治环境。马克龙本人不再将欧洲安全定义为“与俄罗斯同在”，而是反对俄罗斯。法国官员明显倾向于加强“北约内部的欧洲支柱”。
马克龙没有孤立自己，而是将自己定位为西方联盟结构的先驱。这样做，他从德国总理和美国总统乔·拜登的弱点中获益，后者显然很难将自己拖入美国大选。今年 2 月在巴黎举行的会议后，马克龙关于西方地面部队在乌克兰的言论引发争议，这只是这一新路线的一个例子。这位法国总统继续坚持欧盟自治的长期必要性，这种对主权的坚持对于国内政治辩论仍然至关重要，包括在欧洲选举活动期间。然而，与此同时，马克龙也表示他愿意在短期内将法国关于欧洲的长期目标放在次要位置。他对乌克兰非欧洲弹药采购的让步就是一个例子。
法国的抵抗
然而，马克龙发起的方向转变能否持续尚不确定。政治路径依赖和官僚主义的程度
2023 年通过的国防政策预算谈判中，巴黎的惰性显现出来。人们对相应的法律《军事规划法》（LPM）寄予厚望，因为 2024-2030 年期间的资金分配提供了未来几年法国优先事项的信息。政治承诺很快就会被修改，LPM 中的数字不会撒谎。陆军没有成为相应谈判的赢家，而是海军——国防部整体的资金大幅增加——这一事实不仅在巴黎引起了震惊。
毕竟，马克龙在 2023 年宣布了“转向高强度战争”，旨在为法国在北约东翼的联盟团结保证提供新的分量。未来几年，法国将花费大量资金建造一艘新航空母舰或监视法国海外领土，而这在加强军队结构以及欧洲可用的武器系统和弹药方面却会有所欠缺，这一事实让那些怀疑“布拉迪斯拉发议程”严肃性的声音更加响亮。
“塔希提岛仍然比华沙更重要”，一位熟悉今年年初事件的记者打趣道。此前曾有人猜测，马克龙对欧洲安全和北约东翼的承诺与他近年来在西非的失败有多大关系。法国军队于 2022 年 2 月宣布从马里撤军，就在俄罗斯入侵乌克兰前几天。此后，法国进一步被迫从布基纳法索和尼日尔撤军，并宣布减少塞内加尔、加蓬和科特迪瓦基地的部队。尽管国防部代表否认存在直接联系，但问题显而易见：法国是否正在实施“重返欧洲”战略？
重返欧洲是机遇
法国“重返”欧洲对法德关系和欧洲安全来说都是好消息。法国主权主义者喜欢强调，自 1956 年苏伊士运河危机以来，英国已经接受了大英帝国的终结，并接受了其在与美国的特殊关系中扮演的次要角色。自那时起，法国就成为唯一具有全球政治影响力的欧洲大国。英国脱欧和与“全球英国”口号相关的野心并没有对巴黎的自我评估产生重大影响。相反，西非前殖民帝国在许多法语国家的影响力日渐减弱，引发了一场在某些情况下具有生存意义的辩论。当尼日尔政变后法国大使被要求离开该国时，巴黎的一些评论家认为这是又一个“苏伊士危机”，甚至又一个“奠边府危机”，暗指法国在 1954 年第一次印度支那战争中的失败。
法国大使撤离西非，由俄罗斯、中国或土耳其的代表接替，这一事实触及了法国外交政策身份的基础。作为启蒙运动和法国大革命普世主义思想的继承者，法国声称在 21 世纪“有话要说”，其基础远远超出了外交。任何人只要愿意，都可以把法国身份危机看作整个西方及其人权和民主普世信息的危机的表现。
但也许我们仍然可以从反思欧洲中找到机会：对法国、对法德关系、对欧盟。毕竟，鉴于乌克兰争取自决和安全的斗争，捍卫民主和人权在欧洲显然也是必要的。埃马纽埃尔·马克龙似乎抓住了机会，利用他任期的剩余三年，让法国成为主权欧盟的领导力量。
雅各布·罗斯是德国外交关系委员会（DGAP）法国和法德关系研究员。
France's Pivot to Europe
https://ip-quarterly.com/en/frances-pivot-europe
The European Union seems disoriented in 2024. The German chancellor is turning to Washington when leadership is needed. That leaves French President Emmanuel Macron.
In spring 2024, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is once again facing massive criticism, both nationally and internationally. After he presented himself as a European leader at the beginning of the year, emphasizing Germany's lead in aid to Ukraine and calling on European Union allies to do more, the “Taurus debate” has now caught up with him again. His refusal to take the initiative and agree to the delivery of the powerful cruise missile to Ukraine reinforces doubts at home and abroad about the seriousness of Germany’s turnaround, its so-called Zeitenwende.
Germany as a civilian power and the EU as a peace project—both principles are being challenged by Russia’s imperialism, which continues to shift borders by force in the 21st century. In response to this, German leadership in Europe is called for, but the signs are bad. With 18 months before the next federal elections, 72 precent of respondents in Germany were in favor of more money for defense and achieving NATO’s spending goal of 2 percent of GDP for security, and 66 percent were in favor of further arms deliveries to Ukraine, in a survey conducted by the Körber Foundation. However, 71 percent rejected a leading military role for Germany in Europe—a figure that is likely to be well known in the chancellery.
The survey results reflect an old European criticism of the German government, which relates to Scholz as well as his predecessor. Money is available, and the Germans can manage the status quo. But when it comes to developing new ideas, moving forward, and repositioning the EU in a changing world, Berlin cannot be counted on. The current government’s coalition agreement is extremely ambitious on paper and provides for discussions on the path to a "European federal state." However, instead of promoting corresponding reforms, disputes between the center-left Social Democrats (SPD), the Greens, and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) and the so-called “German vote” in Brussels (a forced abstention because the three governing parties do not agree) are now obstructing the process more than ever. The impression among many EU partners is that Germany is standing in the way of change.
French Disappointment
With Berlin out of the picture, eyes are turning to Paris, where President Emmanuel Macron would love to lead Europe. The desire to leave behind a European policy legacy has been unmistakable throughout his presidency, from the speech at Sorbonne University in September 2017 to the speech in Bratislava in May 2023. In between, there have been some notable Franco-German and European successes: huge armaments projects were initiated in 2017; an ambitious new bilateral treaty was signed in Aachen in 2019; the strategic compass was adopted in 2022 under the French EU Council presidency. Shortly afterwards, the EU member states signed the "Versailles Agenda" to strengthen the EU armaments industry.
Nevertheless, Macron has come no closer to his ultimate goal. The EU is anything but sovereign today. The French president blames Olaf Scholz in particular for the fact that the EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy (CSDP) has made hardly any progress since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, apart from new financing instruments. The moment of unity of 2017 has evaporated. At the time, then German Chancellor Angela Merkel, having returned from a first meeting with Donald Trump just months after his inauguration as US president, said that “the times when we could completely rely on others are over.” Merkel was clearly referring to the United States, and people in Paris pricked up their ears. The fact that she spoke in May 2017, shortly after Macron’s election, meant that the basis for historic Franco-German initiatives for a sovereign EU in terms of security policy seemed to be in place.
However, Merkel did not follow up. And since February 2022 at the latest, her successor Olaf Scholz has made no secret of his intention to tie himself as closely as possible to Washington once again. It is a return to the German identity of the Cold War—and a revision of the positions of 2017. Franco-German agreements from this period are therefore being fundamentally called into question. From the French perspective, the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) and Main Ground Combat System (MGCS) armaments projects are based on the conviction that the EU will have to assert itself alone in the 21st century in the long term. It is no coincidence that the Treaty of Aachen contains a bilateral mutual assistance clause and that the armed forces of both countries are to move closer to a “common culture.” Concerns about Trump’s potential return to the White House are now lending new urgency to these considerations.
A Difficult Ally
Paris is actively preparing for the scenario of a second Trump presidency. However, unlike in 2017, Macron is now familiar with the mistrust of his European partners. French claims to leadership have a long and complicated history reaching back to the European Defense Community (EDC), a French initiative, failing in 1954 due to resistance from France’s National Assembly, of all things. In 1966, France, then led by Charles de Gaulle, left NATO’s military command structures once its own nuclear deterrent was available. And when the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, many French politicians expected the end of NATO, which they considered superfluous. At the same time, they were hesitant about the subsequent development of the EU, in particular the eastward enlargement of 2004 and the growing weight of small member states.
France’s influence in Western alliance structures, in the EU and NATO alike, has been suffering from the legacy of Gaullism for decades. Its supposedly unconditional insistence on national sovereignty has made French initiatives for more cooperation less credible to this day, and this is abundantly clear in security and defense policy. Those who constantly emphasize that they can do everything on their own find it difficult to cultivate partners. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Macron and his government have repeatedly stumbled over this handicap, most recently in the course of discussions about the possible Europeanization of the French nuclear deterrent. So far, no partner, not in the EU and certainly not in NATO, can imagine French-led alternatives to the existing US nuclear umbrella.
Since 2017, Macron has also instinctively followed the Gaullist maxim that sees international politics as “multipolar” and wants to prevent new bloc formations at all costs. One prominent example—and there are many more—was his statement on independent EU positions between China and the United States, which he used to snub his Western partners on his return from a visit to China in April 2023. Macron knows that these positions are still very popular in France today. After all, the greatest success of French diplomacy in recent years was not the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015, but the French “no” to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and then Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin’s speech at the UN Security Council.
First Change of Direction
Despite his commitment to the Gaullist guidelines of French foreign policy, Macron has recently changed course, the most significant change being his speech in Bratislava. The fact that a French president became an advocate of Ukrainian and Georgian NATO membership was tantamount to a revolution in 2023. There was soon talk of an "anti-Bucharest moment" in Bratislava, alluding to France's (and Germany's) historic opposition to both countries joining NATO, which had caused controversy at the alliance’s Bucharest summit in 2008. Since then, government representatives have liked to talk about the “Bratislava agenda,” which breaks with traditional French foreign and security policy positions.
Macron himself seems to have learned from past mistakes. In Bratislava, he began by revising his own 2019 diagnosis of NATO’s “brain death.” Russia’s attack on Ukraine was an “electric shock” that revived the transatlantic alliance (and not the EU). Instead of insisting on historical demands for EU sovereignty and offending its partners with polemical statements on NATO, the “Bratislava agenda” has since stood for the new pragmatism in French foreign policy, which is attempting to adapt to changed geopolitical circumstances on the European continent. Macron himself no longer defines European security “with Russia,” but against it. And French officials are noticeably swinging toward talk of strengthening the “European pillar within NATO.”
Instead of isolating himself, Macron is positioning himself as a pioneer of Western alliance structures. In doing so, he is benefiting from the weakness of the German chancellor and a US president, Joe Biden, who is visibly dragging himself into the US election campaign with difficulty. The controversy surrounding Macron’s statements on Western ground troops in Ukraine after a conference in Paris in February were just one example of this new line. The French president continues to insist on the long-term necessity of EU autonomy and this insistence on sovereignty remains essential for domestic political debates, including during the European election campaign. At the same time, however, Macron is signaling his willingness to put France’s long-term goals regarding Europe on the back burner in the short term. His concession on non-European ammunition procurement for Ukraine is one example of this.
Resistance in France
However, it is uncertain how sustainable the change of direction that Macron has initiated will be. The extent of the political path dependencies and bureaucratic inertia in Paris became apparent during the negotiations on the defense policy budget, which was passed in 2023. Expectations of the corresponding law, the loi de programmation militaire (LPM), were high, as the allocation of funds for the period 2024-2030 provides information on French priorities for the coming years. Political promises are quickly revised, and the figures in the LPM do not lie. The fact that the army did not emerge as the winner from the corresponding negotiations, but rather the navy—with significant increases in funding for the defense ministry as a whole—caused astonishment not only in Paris.
After all, Macron had announced a “pivot to high-intensity warfare” in 2023, which was intended to give new weight to French assurances of alliance solidarity on NATO’s eastern flank. The fact that a lot of money will now be spent over the next few years on a new aircraft carrier or the surveillance of French overseas territories—which at the same time will be lacking when it comes to strengthening the army structure and the weapons systems and ammunition available in Europe—is making those voices that doubt the seriousness of the “Bratislava agenda” louder.
“Tahiti remains more important than Warsaw,” quipped a journalist who is well acquainted with the events at the beginning of the year. There had previously been speculation about the extent to which Macron’s commitment to European security and NATO’s eastern flank was linked to his failures in West Africa in recent years. The withdrawal of French troops from Mali was announced in February 2022, just days before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Since then, further forced withdrawals from Burkina-Faso and Niger have followed, as well as the announcement of a reduction in troop contingents at bases in Senegal, Gabon, and Côte d'Ivoire. Although representatives of the defense ministry deny a direct connection, the question is obvious: Is France conducting a “pivot to Europe” here?
The Pivot as an Opportunity
The French “return” to Europe would be good news for Franco-German relations and European security. French sovereigntists like to emphasize that since the Suez Crisis of 1956, the United Kingdom has resigned itself to the end of the British Empire and accepted its junior role in the special relationship with the United States. Since then, France has been the only European power with global political weight. Brexit and the ambitions associated with the “Global Britain” slogan have not significantly affected this self-assessment in Paris. Instead, the dwindling influence in many francophone states of the former colonial empire in West Africa has triggered a debate that in some cases has existential overtones. When the French ambassador was asked to leave the country after the coup in Niger, some commentators in Paris saw a new “Suez,” or even another “?i?n Biên Ph?,” alluding to the defeat of France in the First Indochina War in 1954.
The fact that French ambassadors are withdrawing and being replaced in West Africa by representatives from Russia, China, or Turkey is touching on the foundations of France’s foreign policy identity. As the heir to the universalist ideas of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, its claim to “have something to say” to the world in the 21st century is anchored far beyond diplomacy. And anyone who wants to can certainly see the French identity crisis as a manifestation of the crisis of the entire West and its universal messages of human rights and democracy.
But perhaps there is still an opportunity to be found in reflecting on Europe: for France, for Franco-German relations, and for the EU. After all, in view of the Ukrainian struggle for self-determination and security, it is obvious that the defense of democracy and human rights is also necessary in Europe. Emmanuel Macron seems to seize the opportunity and use the remaining three years of his term of office to make France the leading power of a sovereign EU.
Jacob Ross is Research Fellow for France and Franco-German Relations at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).
