A little more than 24 hours after the second place on the European list, President Macron will be in Brussels on Tuesday for a series of meetings. After meeting with Angela Merkel on Sunday evening, he received dinner Monday the head of the Spanish Socialist Government Pedro Sanchez, the great winner of the poll, he sees as a crucial ally on the European scene.
Tuesday, Emmanuel Macron has even advanced the time of his departure for Brussels to lunch with Belgian Prime Ministers Charles Michel, Spanish Pedro Sanchez, Portuguese Antonio Costa and Dutch Mark Rutte. Then he will meet with the leaders of the Visegrad group (Slovakia, Czech Republic, Poland, Hungary), stronghold of the nationalist camp. Objective: to try to impose its tempo on Europe and place its allies at the head of the institutions.
A strategic arm wrestling
"There is an Act II in France: There will be an Act II in Europe": it is by this type of statements, very voluntarist, that the entourage of President Macron poses the ambition of the Head of State on the European scene. Just like what he did in France, Emmanuel Macron wants to ride the landscape recomposition in Brussels. "We must take the new political situation after the elections," says a presidential advisor. The two major historic parties, which until now shared power, have lost ground. They remain powerful but the Liberals, whose voices will now be needed to win a majority, want their share of the pie.
Emmanuel Macron will therefore plead today to ensure that important positions, such as the Commission or Parliament presidency, are no longer automatically attributed to the EPP or the EA. "There is no eternal right," blows a close to the French president. It is a strategic wrestling in which the Elysee is engaged, and nothing indicates that it will succeed. For if he has allies in Europe, Emmanuel Macron has not always been able to convince his European partners.