Macron's ambitious bid for EU foreign policy leadership faces challenges

French President, Emmanuel Macron, is striving to become the leader of the European Union in the realm of foreign policy, a goal that is not met with enthusiasm by all member states - reports Bloomberg agency.

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The agency notes that under Macron's leadership, France has adopted a more decisive stance in foreign policy. This commitment became particularly evident when Macron publicly rejected the possibility of sending Western military forces to Ukraine.

However, not all of the French president's allies are convinced that he best represents their interests. Macron's controversial remarks about the potential deployment of troops in Ukraine met with immediate and loud criticism from German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and caused dissatisfaction among American officials. These officials privately expressed concerns that such actions could provoke a conflict with Moscow - Bloomberg reports, citing an anonymous, high-ranking official familiar with the discussions among allies.

Macron argued that his comments about the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine were intended to sow uncertainty in Vladimir Putin. However, according to officials familiar with conversations within NATO about Ukraine, they could have the opposite effect. A high-ranking American official assessed that Macron, by forcing Berlin to publicly exclude the option of sending troops to Ukraine, had diluted the ambiguity about where the allies' red line lies.

Bloomberg agency emphasizes that Macron's remarks were not well thought out from an operational security perspective. Several countries have already quietly sent a certain number of soldiers to Ukraine - the agency notes, citing several anonymous sources.

Bloomberg points out that although some EU country prime ministers would willingly accept Macron’s leadership, and many have positively reacted to his tougher stance against Russia, critics of the French president argue that he is more of a man of words than actions.

In this context, the agency recalls that Macron endorsed a Czech initiative last month to acquire 800,000 artillery shells for Ukraine from non-European sources, but so far, France has not provided any money for this purpose, while Germany has invested £257 million to purchase 180,000 shells.

Bloomberg notes that France significantly lags behind its allies in terms of total aid given to Ukraine, citing data from the Kiel Institute for the World Economy. Paris has pledged nearly £1.7 billion in aid to Kyiv, while Germany has declared £19 billion.

The agency notes that Macron would like to fill the vacuum left by the departure of longtime German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, from politics. However, as Rym Momtaz of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) notes, Macron missed the opportunity to decisively take the reins of European leadership at the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He is now trying to correct that mistake.