Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

France and Germany Need to Do More Than Renew Their Vows

Emmanuel Macron and Angela Merkel’s attempt to make an example of their cooperation faces too many obstacles.

January 11, 2019 at 12:45 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

Macron and Merkel. — Macron and Merkel.
Photographer: Philippe Wojazer/AFP/Getty Images

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Amid much fanfare, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are about to sign a new treaty outlining a closer relationship between their two countries.

But the differences between the European Union’s mightiest powers are at least as pronounced as they were when Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer signed their declaration of the two countries’ friendship almost 56 years ago.