Reforms both in france and the european union. It will be a tough mission at home. The right,at home and the union on the left are already making their feelings being known. ,ith us today, Burkhard Birke who says germany must support macron by investing more and engaging in eu reforms because if his revolution fails, frances next president will be Marine Le Pen. Is also with us, arguing it will take more than one macron to save europe, and above all, germany must they macron. Thinks forlle chaze this new deal for europe to succeed, macron must win over both his own electors and other european governments. I would like to begin with you, emmanuelle chaze. We just heard ode to joy, the eus official anthem, which Emmanuel Macron chose as his theme march. It was a pretty courageous gesture, i feel. Emmanuelle it was a gesture that pretty much sums up why people voted for him. Hehe was seen as a proeuropean candidate as opposed to Marine Le Pen, who was antieuropean. Surprising choice, but it went on to show that we were choosing the future of europe more than a french president. Very much are european yourself. You have lived in ireland, germany, ireland, france. A child of europe is how you describe yourself. The proeuropean, europephile macron, what does he mean to you personally . To me, he embodies Young Leaders who want to reform this europe, which is no longer working the way it used to. Lets Burkhard Birke, talk about what lies ahead for Emmanuel Macron. Superheroes and superhuman challenges, herculean tasks . Burkhard absbsolutely. The e biggest challenge will beo pacify the workekers because thy will be out on the streets when he implements more labor reforms. If i were one of his advisers, i would tell him to try to do what we have in germany, try to get the workers into the responsibility of the governance of the terms, of the company. That is the only way you get them off the street and not against you. My hope is he listens to meme, t i think hehes got good advdvis, by reinforcing the famous labor law, he wants to social dialogue between workers and company more of theto defer Central Power to the local dust to each enterprise, and i think this is a good way, maybe a first step to a codecision. That all sounds sane and sensible, but many people are talking about a revolution. You have talked about a revolution. What makes it a revolution . The revolution is only for france. Right. Ot left, he is not he is very center. Is he a personification of the German Grand Coalition . Burkhard absolutely. He is very much on the left, and on all the economic questions, he is more or less a social liberal. He is very liberal for reforming. He market he wants to cut, like, the council tax for the poorer people, which is a measure also to increase purchasing power. Not as liberal as he has been painted in france. He has really taken the way of the center. Eater what do you make of Emmanuel Macron . I ask if he reminds you of the early days of barack obama, the u. S. President , 2009, when he was talking about the audacity of hope. Theas come out and said french people have chosen audacity. Is there a comparison . Alan i hope not. A barack obama was an expert at rhetoric. Personifying integrity and all that, but he is a very weak leader. What we need in france is a very strong leader. I did not think his victory speech was particularly good, which assured me he is not the grand, eloquent person that barack obama was. If he can deliver is the point. We have heard about internal reforms, and he definitely needs to reform europe and get germany on board. Ive been saying for the past couple of days, he beat one woman in the french election. That is Marine Le Pen. It will be harder to beat the next woman, which is Angela Merkel. He definitely needs to do thrown her in europe, get her to support his agenda rather than have him support her agenda, such as it is. That is what he needs to do in europe. Peter what do you make of all of that . Emmanuelle i want to come back to what you were saying, that he defended a lot of left values. He is not seen is that in france. There was a survey this week aimed at 60 saying the 60 of french people did not want him to rule with the majority. That means 60 of the french not place a threat in his own ideas and his own government. You have to keep in mind that a lot of people voted for him peter by default. They did not want Marine Le Pen. Emmanuelle exactly. Test has beend successful, but we have to look ahead and we will see in a month now if he is given full powers in the coming elections, in parliamentary elections. They are really crucial, those parliamentary elections, and i do not think he will have a majority, so he will have a coalition, as i mentioned before, so he will have to ever and members ofte the socialist party, and im really curious how the socialist party will air because for me, the party is almost dead. Peter they look as if they are almost decimated. Emmanuelle also, should he not be able to move the assembly, he would not hesitate to use decrees, as he has already said. Peter the strong leadership model always begins to sound like ruling by decree. Week that is the second leadership model, the trump model. If he does not have a majority for his own party, which does not even exist yet as a parliamentary party, if his own party does not get the majority, he needs to form the coalition youve been talking about, but what im saying is that the french i mean, for the past 20 years, the french have talked about the necessity of reform. I have talked about it. Sarkozy talked about it. Even hollande finally talked about it. But from the moment they try to do anything to bring outsiders into the labor market, that is what it t about, toto open up e labor market for young people. 25 unemployment for young people, that is unbearable, and the reason is that your oldest in the trade union will not open up the job market. If he cannot get that done, then it that he will be in real trouble, but even if he can get that done, germany needs to back him because he is our last best. Ope in europe if the french refuse to do reforms, there will be a great temptation in germany to say been handsoff. The french have to deliver and then we will support them. I think that would he wrong. Peter we are getting ahead of ourselves. Micron has menos no secret that he will make substantial demands of the european union. Lets have a look at what those demands are and discuss those for just a second. Would like to see far deeper integration of the eurozone. A joint eurozone government with its own finance minister and even a parliamament. Plus, a separate budget and Financial Planning funded by a joint tax in eurozone countries. Eu plans also perceive the investing significantly more than today to reinforce europes econonomy. Ispticism toward his ideas particularly prevalent in germany and other Northern European countries. Critics such as the german finance minister fear the longterm consequences of the proposed zero bond and joint liability for europes debts. Macacrons plans cause further division among europeans . Peter we talked about if there will be further divisions. What we are really asking is does he have germany with him or against him . Part of germany with him. He has the social democrats with him because the president of the party has publicly declared that he supports the idea of a European Finance minister and a proper budget for the eurozone. He has this part of germany and of germanys government with him, but theres a lot of skepticism on the side of the christian democrats, and that is why we have an election in september, and i do not think the christian democrats will declare them publicly favoring any of those proposals before this election, and this is the pity because he needs to take action in the first 100 days and announce the most unpopular measures andnd present something positive as well. If he has a reform agenda with a lot of unpopular measures in her country, it will not be a success to say the least because at least he hahas been trying to work on the budget, and has investment coming in. Emmanuelle in order to do so, what is really interesting, as i rich person i find we absolutely do not know who will be the budget minister, who is going to be foreign minister. It is a new movement, so in that have chosennch themselves a president who has a lot of new ideas, but that is a big unknown. We do not even know who will be part of his government, so all the questions are still up in the air. Becausenteresting macron mighte says have social democrats behind him. Im not sure how much use that will be. It looks as though Angela Merkel will be the next german chancellor t to remain in offic. I read an article this week that said merkel should seize the chance to remake europe. That is a sort of destiny moment. Is she going to seize the chance to remake europe . She should. When macron was here and held a our onetime foreign minister held a speech on the future of europe 16 years ago, macron said weve wasted a decade in europe, and that is for 10 years, merkel has been determining what is and is not happening. Merkel has lost her principal ally, great britain, due to brexit. She only has france, so i think although she definitely does not want to go in the direction . Acron wants, who else is there what else is there for her to do . For a while, she said that the brits did not want to go along and had to do this balancing act, but now she cannot. In italy, there is a type of politics similar to what macron ,ants, so the main powers economic and political, in europe aside from germany want to go in a direction she does not want to go to, i think Burkhard Birke is right she probably would want to in before the election, but after the election, she will have to. Peter what about the look opinion in germany . Burkhard public opinioion is against germany paying for the others. Will wait, and if she is reelected, and she will have probably the social democrats again as a partner, she might have a good excuse. They wanted, france once a, and you are absolutely right the weights have shifted in the european union. Germany does not have a blocking minority anymore with the northern countries. The french position is enormously important as a bridge to the southern countries, the mediterranean countries and italy and spain and portugal, ece, all these countries they want this reform, and merkel herself has said in several statements that we need a core europe. We cannot go on with 2 27 natios at t the same pace. She is preparing for her withdrawal. She has her finance minister still raising the finger saying no on eurobonds. I doubt that he might even be a member of the next government, the lets wait and the. France . At about how much resentment in france is there toward germany. Germans have been enjoying prosperity for over a decade. Emmanuelle Angela Merkel is basically seen as the french president , basically. You could see her during the campaign. I do not condone anything that Marine Le Pen would have said, but she did say that in voting for macron, you are also voting for Angela Merkel. I do not think there is anything wrong about it because we need a onong frenchgerman couple the european scale because that is the core europe you were talking about, the frenchgerman couple, and it needs to be revived, and the two of them need to work together, and i think they are both very much aware of it. Macron called merkel right after his victory. The first statement micron merkel will do will be for germany, so both know that they are actually the driven part of europe. I was not saying that inin any d way. Strong couple is what europe needs right now. But merkel is not perceived as a dominant partner anymore. The french perceived germany as the dominant power in europe. Peter i heard something this week, and it sounded wistful, and its a finally, frances voice might be heard alongside germanys. Because micron has criticized germanys export policy. He is not a smooth guy. He is going to come here and tell merkel she needs to do something about austerity and look at the investment made in germany and france. In france, its higher. We do not invest enough in europe and our lost generation, its not only a lost decade in europe, its a lost generation we have. I mean, we need to do something for those people to have them believe in this europe again. Peter to pick up on a point you maybe short while ago, the time has come for Angela Merkel to dump wolfgang schaeuble. For her to decide, really, but one has to say peter you are being very cautious. Think itause i do not is the job of a journalist to advise the government to make this or that decision. Peter he stands for pulling the break. The idea that there has to be a limit to what a government can borrow is one of the most stupid ideas that has ever been introduced into policy. Reader prevailing poverty in the european union. The point of being a government is that you can are as much money as you need to save us from economic ruin and to decree from huron they youre not going to do that ever under any circumstances safely means that somewhere down the line, a politician is going to have to break his or her promise. I cannot even start to say how stupid that is, and that is , and be it by the by in the way it is happening now, that the European Central bank prints the money that is needed, but the idea that somehow we force these southern europeans to be like housewives, to adopt the idea that you can only start spending when you have got the money in your pocket, which is ace to that idea, even in private life idea which is a stupid , even in private life peter i want to go through my notes looking for a quote here. A voice ive heard talking about what germany expects from france. It says there will be no special treatment for france just because it is a large country. Macron can only call for reform on the european level when he has shown his own country is capable of reform. Schaeuble. Is pure the idea that the essence of germany will save the world well, it wont. It has to get us to the fact that europeans are different. Macron said that we are different and that makes our strength, but we cannot go bulldozing the way we have for the past 10 years trying to force people to be like us. Not everybody can have an export surplus. Somebody has to import more if somebody is going to have an export surplus. The german model does not apply to all the other countries. We need to give in and given fast because you can successes, and we need to discuss with france again at high level, give france the feeling that they are at high level. They feel they are being looked down upon. Peter is germany going to continue to make demands on france or be at eye level. That first ofw is all, Emmanuel Macron is going to have to put his own house in order and come what may, it is going to be tough. The french president has more power than any other head of state in europe. In addition to being commanderinchief and in charge of appointing a parliament, the president can dissolve parliament and hold new elections, but if the National Assembly will play ball will be decided by parliamentary elections in june. Thus far, he is a president with no Party Machine behind him. National,pens front on the other hand, has offices across the country and controls city halls in various municipalities. On the street, former investment banker macron is already meeting resistance and seen here by a demonstration by leftwing groups shortly after his election. Will the youngest president in french history be able to implement his plans . Peter thats the question will he be able to implement his plans . Decides to if he rule by decree, then by all means he will be able to implement them. Will he be followed by a majority of his own party thatat will be the question answered next month. Peter ron has been elected but not yet empowered. Thats the situation we find ourselves in. How ugly can it get . Emmanuelle what is already ugly is knowing that 35 chose a far right party as a solution to s problems. What we could see, what we could witness at the assembly is this perpetual struggle between opposition and a government trying to pass laws which are always vetoed by opposing parties. That could be a huge bore for the next five years. Peter you say Marine Le Pen could still be waiting in the wings to swoop. Burkhard yes, micron needs to succeed with his forms because if he does not succeed in five years, im almost sure there will be a large protest vote a d that Marine Le Pen or summit he also has just retired from politics could maybe plan a come back and might be in the position to ascend to power. I would not exclude that because i really since that imagine, almost 11 Million People voted for this rightwing party. 11 million french people. Thats a lot. A lot of catholic conservative people voted for this party, and this will increase the moment macron does not have the successes, does not create jobs, does not create more wealth and m the social situation, so lets wish him all the best, and germany should help him. Peter the other most important person we then talking about his the other most important person we have been talking about. The article in the economist i becausewas really good it said from september onwards, it would be about merkels legacy. Its interesting she could go the micron macron and same way she went with refugees. How do you see that . Merkels human touch in her late days. I dont know if it is human touch. It is really does she want to be remembered as the chancellor under from the eu disintegrated or as the chancellor who helped save europe the chancellor whom the eu disintegrated far as the chancellor who helped save europe . Peter thank you so much for joining us. Michelle hello, and welcome to fokus on europe. Were glad you could join us. Across the continene, all eyess are on france, where rallies for one of the countrys most unpredictable presidenential elections are in full swing. Will the country drift to a populist system hostile to the eu, or will moderate forces prevail . Many voters are still undecided, but here, in the sprawling suburbs, some with a mostly migrant and muslim population, many simply do not want to choose. I distrust the politicians