Europe | Charlemagne

Europe has a problem: France and Germany have forgotten how to argue

The EU’s traditional engine is spluttering

The relationship between France and Germany is of such import to both that each side has home-grown analogies to describe it. For the romantics in France, the country of Charles Baudelaire and Victor Hugo, the alliance is often imagined as a couple, who bicker and occasionally dally with others. In no-nonsense Germany, home of Audi and Volkswagen, the duo forms an engine, a series of controlled explosions used to drive Europe forward. Whichever image one prefers, the current state of the relationship is dire. The ardour has cooled/the cylinders are misfiring. Previous bouts of Franco-German discord strained the EU but led to resolutions that forged European integration. Today’s squabble is nothing spectacular but it is worrying: nobody can see how it ends in productive compromise.

This article appeared in the Europe section of the print edition under the headline “The missing spark”

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From the October 29th 2022 edition

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