Macron maps out his manifesto for more European integration

If this was a tale of two speeches – Theresa May last week on Brexit and Emmanuel Macron this week on the rebirth of Europe – it would be all too easy to get lost in comparisons of the best and worst of times. In Florence, Mrs May took as her theme the autonomy of nations within a shared European heritage. Macron, from his pulpit in the Sorbonne, chose instead to stress the sovereignty of Europe and its place in the world as a counterweight to the U.S. and China.

The other obvious contrast was between a 60 year-old accidental premier who has been through the mill and just hopes to make it to the other side in one piece and a young French president newly installed as the leader of his country, charged with ambition, desperate to get on with things, dismissive of the multiple possibilities of failure.

Mrs May’s nemesis has already been delivered to her by the British electorate. M. Macron’s hubris remains very much in the development stage.

The Macron view of Europe, which he pointedly tied to 2019, the year of Brexit, is at one level all about democracy – that and “interconnectivity”. But he can’t help himself when it comes to new forces, agencies and quangos.

He wants a mutual defence force, complementary to Nato, which would allow troops from the 27, led no doubt by France, to intervene in crises across the world. To kick start the process, soldiers from all over Europe are apparently welcome to join the French Army, and not just the Foreign Legion. In parallel with this would be a civil protection force that would respond to natural disasters – a kind of EU Sans Frontières.

Nor did the so-called Jupiter President shrink from his much-trailed proposal of a European Finance Minister to take charge of a newly-constituted Eurozone budget. Some had thought he might play this down while Germany’s Angela Merkel gets on with the business of establishing a coalition government in Berlin following voters’ underwhelming endorsement of her stewardship in last Sunday’s elections. But 39-year-olds are not easily deterred, and Macron pushed ahead regardless. One imagines that Mrs Merkel will spell out the realities for him when next they meet.

Other items on the Macron wish-list include a carbon tax, payable at Europe’s external frontiers; an EU financial transactions tax; a European Digital Agency to preside over an information revolution; a reformed Common Agricultural Policy focused on self-sufficiency in food; and a European University, handing out degrees and diplomas to young people across the Continent dedicated to the European ideal.

One proposal he put forward that might actually make some headway is for taxes on digital services to be paid to the country in which the business is done and where the value is created – something opposed tooth and nail not only by the likes of Amazon and Google, but by the governments of Ireland and Luxembourg.

In a speech that lasted nearly two hours, the President referred to Britain and Brexit just three times, and then only in passing. While noting, somewhat piously, that Britain could at some point rejoin the outer circle of a simplified EU, he clearly didn’t want to dwell on the issue. If 2019 would mark the departure of the UK from the EU, it would also – applause, applause – be the year in which, he assured us, a newly-elected European Parliament would lead the 27 to a future of sunlit uplands.

The EU, he confided, was “too inefficient and too slow” in its present guise. “But only Europe can allow us to exist in this changing world.”

Well, quite so. It was lofty stuff, delivered with rare passion and seeming conviction. In Brussels, where they could do with a fillip, joy will be unconfined. But back on Earth, Macron must contend more immediately with the problems he faces redrafting France’s antique labour laws. The unions have yet to get their act together on this front. Turnout at their most recent “manifs” has been less than impressive. But French law, especially when it touches on workers’ rights, is not easily amended. The young president has milked the applause. Now he must deliver the goods.