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Focus on the Crucial Elections in the Netherlands, France, and Germany: The Macron-Merkel Ship Sets Sail to Rebuild the EU



Author(s)

Shinitchi Ishii

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DOI:10.17265/2328-2134/2018.02.002

In the past three years from 2015 through 2017, Europe has been confronted by the multiple challenges of terror attacks, Greek debt crisis, strains caused by a massive influx of migrants, Brexit and the America First Policy of US President Trump. These tensions are generating strong pressures to rebuild the EU. In France, the ambitious centrist Emmanuel Macron at the age of 39, staved off the challenge of the far right Marine Le Pen to win a crushing victory in the May 2017 presidential election. Macron has been dubbed the third transformative president in the footsteps of Charles de Gaulle and François Mitterrand. Macron afterwards laid out his vision for rebuilding the EU in a speech at the Sorbonne in Paris. In the German federal election, the CDU/CSU, led by Angela Merkel, plunged to 33% of the vote and its coalition partner the center-left SPD, suffered a historic defeat with only 22%. The xenophobic nationalist Alternative for Germany conversely rose to become the third largest party in the Bundestag with 94 seats and 12.6%. But after many twists and turns, the Macron-Merkel ship has set sail in quest of an “annus mirabilis” that will herald a new age in 2018.

influx of migrants, Brexit, rebuilding the EU, xenophobia