On BFM Business: “The Germans felt that Emmanuel Macron was criticizing the rules of the game”
Intervention during the Inside programme on BFM Business on July 1, 2019.
For Yves Bertoncini, the failure of the negotiations on the evening of the second day of the European Summit offers “a sad spectacle, that of European disunity”. He explains that this failure is due to two phenomena:
– First, the complexity of the appointment process: “we do not only appoint the President of the European Commission, there is a package with the President of the Council, the President of the European Parliament, the High Representative for Foreign Affairs, the President of the ECB“. This pluralism of positions in the appointment process generates complexities, according to Yves Bertoncini, who specifies that “we must therefore combine partisan, geographical and parity balances”. However, the President of the European Movement asserts that this time the situation is more complicated: at issue is the partisan diversity in the European Parliament but also in the European Council “very divided since the five largest countries of the European Union are led by five different parties, which is totally new“.
– The second reason for this failure is the attitude of Emmanuel Macron, who challenged the rules of the Spitzenkandidat game: “Manfred Weber was blocked on principle, but the Germans and others felt that Emmanuel Macron was challenging the very rule of the Spitzenkandidat and wanted Weber to at least have the right to try his luck”.