Macron's Letter: Words, words, words of EU nationalism

March 7, 2019

French president Emmanuel Macron has published an extremely long Open Letter to 27 leading newspapers in all EU member states. (The fact that it has been all over the place and way longer than the usual about 800 words for a feature article speaks volumes about the close connection state-media and the lack of quality control, one might add.

The kindest thing one could say – or at least I could say – is that he is at least trying to think a bit about the future where virtually all other Western leaders are doing daily crisis management and unprincipled, pragmatic decision-making.

It’s sad that Macron’s visionary attempt and appeals are so unattractive – bordering on boring – at least in the light of having been sold to the public as an intellectual.

Sputnik News asked me to comment and here is what I had to say. Although that formulation has not made it through the final editing, I repeatedly used the words EU nationalism to characterise his – surprisingly narrowminded – focus on the EU (not even Europe, including Russia) as if the rest of the world, 92% of humanity, does not exist.

And then his talk of borders, protection and a new (military) defence policy for a union that cannot even agree on a common foreign policy as is should according to its own constitution, the Lisbon Treaty.

No, we are still waiting for an innovative, truly visionary leadership of the European Union to pull it out – if possible – of its existential crisis.