state visit
Schäuble: France is Germany’s closest partner
Wolfgang Schäuble is a former President of the Bundestag. photo
© Marijan Murat/dpa
“Germany and France are the closest partners in Europe,” says former Bundestag President Schäuble. He sees no drama in the failure of the state visit, the relationships are too close for that.
Schäuble warned that it was disturbing if the impression was given that the governments did not agree on important issues. “I don’t think that such upsets should be normal.”
Again and again differences between Berlin and Paris
Since the Ampel government took office, there have been repeated differences between Berlin and Paris, especially on energy and defense policy. Macron was recently criticized in Germany for calling on Europe to take a more independent course on the Taiwan question after a visit to China in April.
In his view, a joint appearance by Macron and Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) in China would have been a strong European signal, said Schäuble. However, there were also omissions in German-French relations during the reign of ex-Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Macron had postponed the planned state visit because of the ongoing riots in France. In a telephone conversation on Saturday, he informed Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier about the situation in his country and asked for the postponement, as the Office of the Federal President announced.