After Marine Le Pen’s jab from the right during the presidential elections in April, Emmanuel Macron now takes a left hook from Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing alliance and as a result, the center alliance lost its absolute majority of seats in parliament in yesterday’s elections. This will likely make it more difficult for Macron to implement his reform plans. Tanja Kuchenbecker analyzed the election results and France’s possible future course.
At this week’s EU summit, Ukraine’s candidate status is in the balance. The EU Commission and countries like Germany and France have already signaled their approval, and even initially skeptical countries like the Netherlands and Denmark are putting aside their concerns. However, none of this will help if Hungary votes against it in the end, as Eric Bonse reports from Brussels.
Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck has announced emergency measures to continue securing gas supplies in Germany. Among other things, an additional credit line is supposed to be made available via the state bank KfW. Read more about this in the News.
China and the US are expanding their technological power on the global market, always competing against each other. In today’s Opinion, our guest author José-Ignacio Torreblanca explains why Europe must quickly learn to act strategically to avoid becoming the digital colony of other powers.
Wishing you a good start to the week.
It was even closer than the polling institutes had predicted. According to initial projections, the president’s Ensemble alliance would have only 210 to 250 seats in the National Assembly, far short of the absolute majority of 289 seats. That would leave him with only a relative majority. French media saw the outcome as a “heavy defeat” for Macron. The 577 deputies for the National Assembly were elected in 577 constituencies. The legislative period lasts five years.
The left-wing alliance Nupes, led by left-wing politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is seen at 150 to 180 seats. Mélenchon, who is critical of the EU, wanted to challenge Macron for the majority in the National Assembly and had put himself forward as the new prime minister. Opinion research institutes had considered it unlikely that Mélenchon and his allies would succeed in gaining a majority, but at least he managed to steal an absolute majority from Macron, as he had hoped. This could put the latter in a tight spot when it comes to laws that he wants to push through. There was talk from the ranks of Nupes that they wanted to make life difficult for Macron. He must now reckon with a strong opposition.
The anti-capitalist Mélenchon succeeded in forming an alliance with Socialists, Greens and Communists, and the united left Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale (Nupes, New Ecologic and Social People’s Union) is now the second strongest force in the country. In the presidential election, Macron had the anti-EU far-right Marine Le Pen as a rival, but now the attack came from the left. The election was also a success for Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) party. According to projections, RN will win 80 to 100 seats, ten times more than before. Le Pen herself was also elected with over 61 percent. This makes her party the third strongest force in the country. The party celebrated the outcome as a victory. Marine Le Pen spoke of a “great emotion” on election night.
Abstention was very high at an estimated 54 percent, still one percent more than in the first ballot. In 2017, the figure was as high as 57.4 percent in the second round of voting. “This constellation would force the government to have to negotiate with the deputies,” Gaël Sliman, president of Odoxa, said even before the second round of voting. The opinion research institutes saw Macron at 252 to 305 seats, in fact, it has become much less.
Sliman declared Macron the “big loser” of the election. Macron previously had a comfortable majority in parliament, which made it possible for him to push through his political plans. In 2017, he and his allies had achieved 359 seats, while the left-wing parties had only managed around 70 seats. Within a few years, they have become the strong force in the country because Macron’s policies were perceived by many as too business-oriented and not social enough. Many also do not see him as credible on environmental issues. Until now, the elected president in France had always achieved an absolute majority in subsequent parliamentary elections in recent decades.
However, two important figures in Macron’s government managed to save themselves. Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne achieved 52.3 percent against Nupes. The rule applies that ministers who lose in the parliamentary elections may not remain in government. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin also managed to keep his post for the first time with 57.5 percent.
Macron now has to win over deputies from other groups as allies for legislative projects to get his laws passed in France. However, this is likely to have less of an impact on his plans for Europe. Macron will rely on the conservative Republicans, who according to projections have 60 to 70 seats, especially for economic reforms. This could lead to the president having to move even further to the right with his policies. Like Macron, the conservatives also want to raise the retirement age to 65, so he could push through the pension reform. There was also consensus on other points in the program, such as higher tax allowances in inheritance law. The right-wingers, however, are far more focused on budget discipline than Macron. Measures for purchasing power, which the leftists particularly demanded, could be made more difficult.
Following the EU Commission’s recommendation to grant Ukraine and Moldova the status of accession candidates, several previously skeptical states have dropped their reservations. This brings approval at the EU summit on June 23 and 24 closer. However, the EU still needs to clarify how it will deal with the Western Balkans. The “political knot” has not yet been untied, according to Brussels.
On Friday, the Commission had decided that Ukraine should be given the prospect of membership in the European Union. “The country should be granted the status of a candidate country, even if measures still need to be taken in a number of areas,” the Brussels-based authority said. It chose the same wording for Moldova.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen justified the decision by saying that Ukraine had already adopted 70 percent of EU rules. “Ukrainians are ready to die for the European perspective,” she said. “We want them to live with us the European dream.” However, she said, the country still has to implement a number of reforms, and much remains to be done, especially in the area of corruption.
European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi said that Ukraine and Moldova should start the reforms as soon as possible. However, he said, this is not a prerequisite for the “go” on candidate status. In any case, this is considered only a first symbolic step. What is ultimately decisive is the opening of accession negotiations. “That is not on the agenda yet,” Varhelyi stressed.
In initial reactions, the Netherlands and Denmark backed away from their previously skeptical stance. “We will of course follow the recommendation,” said Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod. Dutch head of government Mark Rutte also signaled support. This brings approval at the EU summit closer. Candidate status must be decided unanimously.
However, it is still unclear how Portugal and Hungary will position themselves. Before the Commission’s recommendation, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa warned in the Financial Times not to raise false expectations. The Hungarian head of government, Viktor Órban, is considered a notorious troublemaker; most recently, he demanded guarantees for the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin also commented on Ukraine’s possible accession. Russia would have nothing against accession, he said, adding that the EU was not a military organization. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov had previously stated that Russia was keeping a close eye on Ukraine’s accession plans and had referred to efforts to strengthen the EU’s defense policy as justification. It is questionable how credible Putin’s statements are.
The Western Balkans are also causing nervousness in Brussels. Some states there have been waiting for years for the coveted ticket into the EU. They are now afraid of being passed over. During a trip through the region, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made a strong case for Albania and North Macedonia. “The accession negotiations that were firmly promised two years ago must begin now,” he said.
During his visit to Kyiv, Scholz reiterated this position. It is “a question of European credibility that we finally keep our promises to the states of the Western Balkans (…); now and concretely”. He has the backing of Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer. He even made it a “condition” that the EU treat Ukraine and the Western Balkan countries equally.
EU Council President Charles Michel now has the delicate task of cutting the knot in the Western Balkans. To that end, he has convened his own Western Balkans summit, to be held on Thursday immediately before the EU summit. The matter is a “top priority”, Michel said last Thursday at a joint press conference with North Macedonian President Stevo Pendarovski.
Pendarovski complained that the constant postponement of the decision “undermines the credibility of the EU as a whole”. Bulgaria, which is threatening to veto the start of accession talks, is seen as the key to a solution. Among other things, Sofia wants the rights of the Bulgarian minority to be enshrined in North Macedonia’s constitution. The outcome of the dispute remains unclear.
Last but not least, the candidate status for Ukraine also raises the question of the EU’s absorption capacity. This is one of the Copenhagen criteria adopted by the European Council in 1993 for the accession of new countries. This is about the ability of the current 27 EU member states to absorb and successfully integrate further member states without jeopardizing their own ability to act and develop further.
There have been doubts about this ability for some time. The repeated blocking of important decisions by Hungary has recently fed these doubts again. Scholz called over the weekend for EU reforms to facilitate Ukraine’s admission. “To do this, it must modernize its structures and decision-making processes. Not everything will always be able to be decided unanimously that needs to be decided unanimously today.” He also wanted to talk about this at the EU summit.
Europeans seem to have forgotten that technological supremacy once allowed them to dominate the world. China, like Japan and many other countries, was subjugated by Europeans because of its technological inferiority – with consequences that are still apparent today. This is why Beijing’s technology strategy now aims to not only protect China’s technological sovereignty but also to extend its influence around the world, using the combined weight of its diplomacy and its technology companies. In Africa, Latin America, the Indo-Pacific, the Balkans, and even the heart of Europe, China is strategically positioning its communications companies and technologies to increase its power and influence.
Meanwhile, the United States, a technological superpower, knows that its rivalry with China – the great geopolitical contest of the twenty-first century – will be settled mostly in the field of technology. Facing its own Sputnik moment, Washington is acting accordingly. It is reshaping its military-industrial complex so that large technology companies work alongside its military to develop capabilities that will set it apart from China. The US sees artificial intelligence as a battlefield. It blocks China’s access to critical capabilities, such as semiconductors, to slow its growth. And it imposes technological sanctions on Russia to weaken its war effort.
Moscow, for its part, is trying to develop its own technology – with little success. But it compensates for this failure by exploiting the openness of social media platforms and networks to manipulate public opinion in democratic countries, destabilize their elections and governments, and spread its narratives about the invasion of Ukraine in the global south. All this is designed to undermine US and EU sanctions on Russia. Thanks to its cybersecurity and disinformation skills, and in the face of US and EU impotence, Russia has become the world’s great digital spoiler.
Each technology creates its own geopolitical order. For instance, the Middle East’s central role in international politics is closely linked to an economic development model based on access to, and trade in, fossil fuels. Today, a new geopolitical order associated with technology is emerging. One can see this in how the struggle between great powers increasingly centers on data and the technologies that handle and exploit it. The new Strait of Hormuz, Suez Canal, and Strait of Malacca that states struggle to control are Taiwanese semiconductor factories, the rare earths needed to manufacture advanced technology, and the undersea cables through which data travels.
For the European Union, a world of competition for technological hegemony is fraught with danger. To prosper, the EU needs a world based on rules, not force. But there can be no return to the benign globalisation in which it did not matter where things were made or who made them. Interdependence is now a vulnerability that states exploit to coerce one another. And Russia’s war on Ukraine will only reinforce technological bipolarity: while the US and China are already engaged in a global Cold War over technology, the EU and Russia are recreating these tensions at the regional level.
In this new world, the EU will suffer for at least two reasons. It wants to regulate its market according to high ethical standards but lacks companies that are global leaders in advanced technology. At the same time, its regulations clash with the interests of players such as the US – which is concerned that European standards will weaken the large American tech companies that are vital to its struggle with China.
But the EU also suffers because it struggles to act strategically: so far, it has been unable to counterbalance China or Russia, or to offer the global south an alternative form of economic development based on its model of technological humanism. Europe, once a global leader in technology, will become a digital colony of others if it is unable to compete with China or the US in the development of new technologies and digital capabilities.
Therefore, the EU needs a technology strategy that provides it with the tools to act globally in defense of its principles and interests. It must forge technology alliances around the world, open markets (including its own market), help allies and like-minded countries counter China and Russia, offer cyber-security capabilities to those who lack them, and help protect democracies and their elections from foreign interference.
The EU must do all this in collaboration with the US, but not as its subordinate. The union requires not only a vision but also a massive investment in the technological capabilities that it currently lacks. The EU will also need to ensure that its technological diplomacy is more effective and coordinated than ever before.
José Torreblanca is the head of ECFR’s Madrid office.
This article is part of a cooperation between Europe.Table and the annual conference of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), which takes place in Berlin on 19-20 June.
After Marine Le Pen’s jab from the right during the presidential elections in April, Emmanuel Macron now takes a left hook from Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s left-wing alliance and as a result, the center alliance lost its absolute majority of seats in parliament in yesterday’s elections. This will likely make it more difficult for Macron to implement his reform plans. Tanja Kuchenbecker analyzed the election results and France’s possible future course.
At this week’s EU summit, Ukraine’s candidate status is in the balance. The EU Commission and countries like Germany and France have already signaled their approval, and even initially skeptical countries like the Netherlands and Denmark are putting aside their concerns. However, none of this will help if Hungary votes against it in the end, as Eric Bonse reports from Brussels.
Economic Affairs Minister Robert Habeck has announced emergency measures to continue securing gas supplies in Germany. Among other things, an additional credit line is supposed to be made available via the state bank KfW. Read more about this in the News.
China and the US are expanding their technological power on the global market, always competing against each other. In today’s Opinion, our guest author José-Ignacio Torreblanca explains why Europe must quickly learn to act strategically to avoid becoming the digital colony of other powers.
Wishing you a good start to the week.
It was even closer than the polling institutes had predicted. According to initial projections, the president’s Ensemble alliance would have only 210 to 250 seats in the National Assembly, far short of the absolute majority of 289 seats. That would leave him with only a relative majority. French media saw the outcome as a “heavy defeat” for Macron. The 577 deputies for the National Assembly were elected in 577 constituencies. The legislative period lasts five years.
The left-wing alliance Nupes, led by left-wing politician Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is seen at 150 to 180 seats. Mélenchon, who is critical of the EU, wanted to challenge Macron for the majority in the National Assembly and had put himself forward as the new prime minister. Opinion research institutes had considered it unlikely that Mélenchon and his allies would succeed in gaining a majority, but at least he managed to steal an absolute majority from Macron, as he had hoped. This could put the latter in a tight spot when it comes to laws that he wants to push through. There was talk from the ranks of Nupes that they wanted to make life difficult for Macron. He must now reckon with a strong opposition.
The anti-capitalist Mélenchon succeeded in forming an alliance with Socialists, Greens and Communists, and the united left Nouvelle Union populaire écologique et sociale (Nupes, New Ecologic and Social People’s Union) is now the second strongest force in the country. In the presidential election, Macron had the anti-EU far-right Marine Le Pen as a rival, but now the attack came from the left. The election was also a success for Le Pen’s Rassemblement National (RN) party. According to projections, RN will win 80 to 100 seats, ten times more than before. Le Pen herself was also elected with over 61 percent. This makes her party the third strongest force in the country. The party celebrated the outcome as a victory. Marine Le Pen spoke of a “great emotion” on election night.
Abstention was very high at an estimated 54 percent, still one percent more than in the first ballot. In 2017, the figure was as high as 57.4 percent in the second round of voting. “This constellation would force the government to have to negotiate with the deputies,” Gaël Sliman, president of Odoxa, said even before the second round of voting. The opinion research institutes saw Macron at 252 to 305 seats, in fact, it has become much less.
Sliman declared Macron the “big loser” of the election. Macron previously had a comfortable majority in parliament, which made it possible for him to push through his political plans. In 2017, he and his allies had achieved 359 seats, while the left-wing parties had only managed around 70 seats. Within a few years, they have become the strong force in the country because Macron’s policies were perceived by many as too business-oriented and not social enough. Many also do not see him as credible on environmental issues. Until now, the elected president in France had always achieved an absolute majority in subsequent parliamentary elections in recent decades.
However, two important figures in Macron’s government managed to save themselves. Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne achieved 52.3 percent against Nupes. The rule applies that ministers who lose in the parliamentary elections may not remain in government. Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin also managed to keep his post for the first time with 57.5 percent.
Macron now has to win over deputies from other groups as allies for legislative projects to get his laws passed in France. However, this is likely to have less of an impact on his plans for Europe. Macron will rely on the conservative Republicans, who according to projections have 60 to 70 seats, especially for economic reforms. This could lead to the president having to move even further to the right with his policies. Like Macron, the conservatives also want to raise the retirement age to 65, so he could push through the pension reform. There was also consensus on other points in the program, such as higher tax allowances in inheritance law. The right-wingers, however, are far more focused on budget discipline than Macron. Measures for purchasing power, which the leftists particularly demanded, could be made more difficult.
Following the EU Commission’s recommendation to grant Ukraine and Moldova the status of accession candidates, several previously skeptical states have dropped their reservations. This brings approval at the EU summit on June 23 and 24 closer. However, the EU still needs to clarify how it will deal with the Western Balkans. The “political knot” has not yet been untied, according to Brussels.
On Friday, the Commission had decided that Ukraine should be given the prospect of membership in the European Union. “The country should be granted the status of a candidate country, even if measures still need to be taken in a number of areas,” the Brussels-based authority said. It chose the same wording for Moldova.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen justified the decision by saying that Ukraine had already adopted 70 percent of EU rules. “Ukrainians are ready to die for the European perspective,” she said. “We want them to live with us the European dream.” However, she said, the country still has to implement a number of reforms, and much remains to be done, especially in the area of corruption.
European Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi said that Ukraine and Moldova should start the reforms as soon as possible. However, he said, this is not a prerequisite for the “go” on candidate status. In any case, this is considered only a first symbolic step. What is ultimately decisive is the opening of accession negotiations. “That is not on the agenda yet,” Varhelyi stressed.
In initial reactions, the Netherlands and Denmark backed away from their previously skeptical stance. “We will of course follow the recommendation,” said Danish Foreign Minister Jeppe Kofod. Dutch head of government Mark Rutte also signaled support. This brings approval at the EU summit closer. Candidate status must be decided unanimously.
However, it is still unclear how Portugal and Hungary will position themselves. Before the Commission’s recommendation, Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa warned in the Financial Times not to raise false expectations. The Hungarian head of government, Viktor Órban, is considered a notorious troublemaker; most recently, he demanded guarantees for the Hungarian minority in Ukraine.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin also commented on Ukraine’s possible accession. Russia would have nothing against accession, he said, adding that the EU was not a military organization. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov had previously stated that Russia was keeping a close eye on Ukraine’s accession plans and had referred to efforts to strengthen the EU’s defense policy as justification. It is questionable how credible Putin’s statements are.
The Western Balkans are also causing nervousness in Brussels. Some states there have been waiting for years for the coveted ticket into the EU. They are now afraid of being passed over. During a trip through the region, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz made a strong case for Albania and North Macedonia. “The accession negotiations that were firmly promised two years ago must begin now,” he said.
During his visit to Kyiv, Scholz reiterated this position. It is “a question of European credibility that we finally keep our promises to the states of the Western Balkans (…); now and concretely”. He has the backing of Austrian Chancellor Karl Nehammer. He even made it a “condition” that the EU treat Ukraine and the Western Balkan countries equally.
EU Council President Charles Michel now has the delicate task of cutting the knot in the Western Balkans. To that end, he has convened his own Western Balkans summit, to be held on Thursday immediately before the EU summit. The matter is a “top priority”, Michel said last Thursday at a joint press conference with North Macedonian President Stevo Pendarovski.
Pendarovski complained that the constant postponement of the decision “undermines the credibility of the EU as a whole”. Bulgaria, which is threatening to veto the start of accession talks, is seen as the key to a solution. Among other things, Sofia wants the rights of the Bulgarian minority to be enshrined in North Macedonia’s constitution. The outcome of the dispute remains unclear.
Last but not least, the candidate status for Ukraine also raises the question of the EU’s absorption capacity. This is one of the Copenhagen criteria adopted by the European Council in 1993 for the accession of new countries. This is about the ability of the current 27 EU member states to absorb and successfully integrate further member states without jeopardizing their own ability to act and develop further.
There have been doubts about this ability for some time. The repeated blocking of important decisions by Hungary has recently fed these doubts again. Scholz called over the weekend for EU reforms to facilitate Ukraine’s admission. “To do this, it must modernize its structures and decision-making processes. Not everything will always be able to be decided unanimously that needs to be decided unanimously today.” He also wanted to talk about this at the EU summit.
Europeans seem to have forgotten that technological supremacy once allowed them to dominate the world. China, like Japan and many other countries, was subjugated by Europeans because of its technological inferiority – with consequences that are still apparent today. This is why Beijing’s technology strategy now aims to not only protect China’s technological sovereignty but also to extend its influence around the world, using the combined weight of its diplomacy and its technology companies. In Africa, Latin America, the Indo-Pacific, the Balkans, and even the heart of Europe, China is strategically positioning its communications companies and technologies to increase its power and influence.
Meanwhile, the United States, a technological superpower, knows that its rivalry with China – the great geopolitical contest of the twenty-first century – will be settled mostly in the field of technology. Facing its own Sputnik moment, Washington is acting accordingly. It is reshaping its military-industrial complex so that large technology companies work alongside its military to develop capabilities that will set it apart from China. The US sees artificial intelligence as a battlefield. It blocks China’s access to critical capabilities, such as semiconductors, to slow its growth. And it imposes technological sanctions on Russia to weaken its war effort.
Moscow, for its part, is trying to develop its own technology – with little success. But it compensates for this failure by exploiting the openness of social media platforms and networks to manipulate public opinion in democratic countries, destabilize their elections and governments, and spread its narratives about the invasion of Ukraine in the global south. All this is designed to undermine US and EU sanctions on Russia. Thanks to its cybersecurity and disinformation skills, and in the face of US and EU impotence, Russia has become the world’s great digital spoiler.
Each technology creates its own geopolitical order. For instance, the Middle East’s central role in international politics is closely linked to an economic development model based on access to, and trade in, fossil fuels. Today, a new geopolitical order associated with technology is emerging. One can see this in how the struggle between great powers increasingly centers on data and the technologies that handle and exploit it. The new Strait of Hormuz, Suez Canal, and Strait of Malacca that states struggle to control are Taiwanese semiconductor factories, the rare earths needed to manufacture advanced technology, and the undersea cables through which data travels.
For the European Union, a world of competition for technological hegemony is fraught with danger. To prosper, the EU needs a world based on rules, not force. But there can be no return to the benign globalisation in which it did not matter where things were made or who made them. Interdependence is now a vulnerability that states exploit to coerce one another. And Russia’s war on Ukraine will only reinforce technological bipolarity: while the US and China are already engaged in a global Cold War over technology, the EU and Russia are recreating these tensions at the regional level.
In this new world, the EU will suffer for at least two reasons. It wants to regulate its market according to high ethical standards but lacks companies that are global leaders in advanced technology. At the same time, its regulations clash with the interests of players such as the US – which is concerned that European standards will weaken the large American tech companies that are vital to its struggle with China.
But the EU also suffers because it struggles to act strategically: so far, it has been unable to counterbalance China or Russia, or to offer the global south an alternative form of economic development based on its model of technological humanism. Europe, once a global leader in technology, will become a digital colony of others if it is unable to compete with China or the US in the development of new technologies and digital capabilities.
Therefore, the EU needs a technology strategy that provides it with the tools to act globally in defense of its principles and interests. It must forge technology alliances around the world, open markets (including its own market), help allies and like-minded countries counter China and Russia, offer cyber-security capabilities to those who lack them, and help protect democracies and their elections from foreign interference.
The EU must do all this in collaboration with the US, but not as its subordinate. The union requires not only a vision but also a massive investment in the technological capabilities that it currently lacks. The EU will also need to ensure that its technological diplomacy is more effective and coordinated than ever before.
José Torreblanca is the head of ECFR’s Madrid office.
This article is part of a cooperation between Europe.Table and the annual conference of the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), which takes place in Berlin on 19-20 June.
