MUNICH — French President Emmanuel Macron’s attempt to increase European military independence from the United States while reaching out to Russia is irritating President Trump’s administration and stoking alarm in former Soviet nations.
“When you read what some French leaders say, they try to present the situation: We are European, [with] equal distance, political distance, to U.S. and to Russia,” Polish Foreign Minister Jacek Czaputowicz told the Washington Examiner in an exclusive interview. “I observe also a tendency to portray U.S. as a problem.”
Skepticism and even fear about Macron’s bid for European leadership coursed around the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference, overshadowed by the China-related disputes between Washington and Europe that took center stage. After years of unease about Trump’s commitment to NATO’s Article 5 obligations being in vogue, Macron’s call for Europe to bolster defense plans with the goal of being able to break with the U.S. in major foreign policy disputes left U.S. officials fuming.
“Everyone in the alliance, besides France, wants the transatlantic bond,” a senior U.S. official told the Washington Examiner on condition of anonymity.
Macron denies that he is proposing any fracture of the transatlantic alliance, casting his proposals as a natural response to U.S. demands that European allies take more responsibility for their own defense.
“We need some freedom of action in Europe; we need our own strategy; we need to develop our own strategy,” Macron told the Munich Security Conference through a translator on Saturday. “Mediterranean policy: A European thing, not a transatlantic thing, and the same goes for Russia — we need a European policy, not just a transatlantic policy.”
That line of argument drew pushback from NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
“More Europe cannot mean Europe alone,” Stoltenberg said, implying that Macron’s proposals have the same flaws that European officials attribute to Trump’s America First platform. “Any attempt to distance Europe from North America, not only weakens the transatlantic bond, and our ability to compete on the global stage, it also risks dividing Europe.”
Stoltenberg didn’t mention Macron by name, but the rebuke was unmistakable to the participants of the most recent NATO Leader’s Meeting in London. The NATO civilian chief was quoting a warning directed at Macron during a closed-door conversation.
“It was a quote from the ministers in London in December. They said, ‘If you split off America from the transatlantic bond, you will divide Europe,’” the senior U.S. official said. “It was one of the ministers who said exactly those words, and all of them said in different ways that they agreed with that.”
Macron’s attempt “to be the leader of security in Europe,” as the official put it, has left Pentagon officials “very” frustrated and led to clashes within the NATO policy-making process.
“He’s critical of NATO, and they block much of what NATO does so that it will be done in the EU, led by France,” the senior U.S. official fumed, before faulting Macron for “trying to now bring Russia into the fold and open arms to Russia” even though Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t withdrawn the Russian troops that annexed Crimea and attacked eastern Ukraine in 2014.
“They don’t call Russia an adversary; they don’t call China a potential competitor,” the person added. “We are trying to assess a risk and meet that risk. That’s what America does. It’s why we are the leader of NATO.”
Macron emphasized that he is not calling for an end to the Ukraine-related sanctions on Russia, but his overtures to Moscow have spurred disagreements with allies in former Soviet vassal states. That unease was not soothed by his argument that he is attempting to fortify European sovereignty at a time when the U.S. has identified Russia and China as major adversaries.
“It is dangerous,” said Czaputowicz. “From our perspective, you cannot compare our external actors — like China, Russia — and [the] U.S. … We do not agree with that, and we argue within the European Union for close transatlantic links.”
