{"id":707748,"date":"2026-01-20T03:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/707748\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T03:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:17:11","slug":"franco-german-tensions-threaten-eus-drive-for-common-front-against-trump-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/707748\/","title":{"rendered":"Franco-German tensions threaten EU\u2019s drive for common front against Trump \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Duclos also noted the German resentment over Mercosur: \u201cIf we want more strategic autonomy, we need new partnerships,\u201d\u00a0including the EU-Mercosur trade deal,\u00a0he said.\u00a0\u201cFor the Germans, we don\u2019t look serious.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Frustrations on Mercosur and jets\u00a0<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When it came to finalizing that long-delayed\u00a0trade deal with\u00a0\u00a0Mercosur, Berlin initially wanted to get Paris on board by giving in to various\u00a0French concessions,\u00a0but\u00a0eventually\u00a0gave up.\u00a0\u201cThe country is on the brink of becoming ungovernable,\u201d one German government official said of Macron\u2019s inability to push back against fierce domestic opposition, particularly from farmers. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The FCAS joint Franco-German jet-fighter project is proving another major bugbear.<\/p>\n<p>The \u20ac100 billion venture is on life support after Paris and Berlin\u00a0failed to\u00a0agree\u00a0on how to proceed last month. According to Peter Beyer, a foreign policy lawmaker from Merz\u2019s conservatives,\u00a0French companies are exerting \u201cmassive pressure,\u201d and \u201ceven a French president apparently cannot see beyond that.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNow the thinking is going so far as to perhaps do it without the French, which I think would be a disaster,\u00a0but at the moment there is no progress,\u201d he\u00a0said, referencing\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/germany-france-europe-fighter-jet-defense-aviation\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">suggestions that Germany is looking at developing a fighter jet<\/a> without French\u00a0manufacturer Dassault Aviation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>All of those discussions about how far the Germans want to team up with France on weapons are now also colored by the far-right National Rally leading polls ahead of next year\u2019s presidential election in France.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe prospect of\u00a0the National Rally coming\u00a0to power is already weighing heavily on\u00a0French-German\u00a0discussions on defense,\u201d said Jacob Ross,\u00a0a research fellow at the German Council on Foreign Relations.<\/p>\n<p>Laura Kayali and Gregorio Sorgi contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Duclos also noted the German resentment over Mercosur: \u201cIf we want more strategic autonomy, we need new partnerships,\u201d\u00a0including&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":707749,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[3427,1789,1194,2437,6215,2825,32,33,34,2000,299,5187,474,805,36,1824,42,43,44,2597,5111,2343,48,332,811,7497,1201,657,49],"class_list":{"0":"post-707748","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-banking","9":"tag-belgium","10":"tag-budget","11":"tag-companies","12":"tag-cooperation","13":"tag-debt","14":"tag-donald-trump","15":"tag-elections","16":"tag-emmanuel-macron","17":"tag-eu","18":"tag-europe","19":"tag-european","20":"tag-finance","21":"tag-foreign-policy","22":"tag-france","23":"tag-germany","24":"tag-jordan-bardella","25":"tag-macron","26":"tag-marine-le-pen","27":"tag-military","28":"tag-parliament","29":"tag-research","30":"tag-rights","31":"tag-russia","32":"tag-security","33":"tag-strategic-autonomy","34":"tag-trade","35":"tag-ukraine","36":"tag-united-states"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115925263587227634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=707748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/707748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/707749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=707748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=707748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=707748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}