A weaker Emmanuel Macron

President Macron is losing direction when it comes to France’s domestic politics. I real think that’s a major issue, both for the French and for all of us, in the EU.

His press conference of this week was supposed to respond to many months of street protests led by the Gilets Jaunes and to draw lessons from the national debate the President had promoted throughout the country on several key topics. Under the national debate, hundreds of public meetings and town halls had been organised. Emmanuel Macron himself chaired some of the gatherings.

The press event has shown that the President has left behind some important political commitments he had made during the electoral fight. One of the most important has to do with the reform of the French state administration. The country needs to adjust the administrative machinery to the new needs of the citizens and, at the same time, rationalise the costs. The last time France had a balanced public budget was 45 years ago, in 1974. Since then, the official administration is living well beyond the means the economy would allow. The country is deeply in debt. Public debt is today around 2,200 billion Euros. This is unacceptable and it will have a serious impact on future generations. Instead of cutting unnecessary expenditures, President Macron announced new measures that will increase public spending and, sooner or later, will have to be translated into new taxes.

He has also been unable to deal with the sustainability of the national pension system. The French, like all of us, are living longer. But, for demagogic reasons, the pension age remains at 62. He should have increased that ceiling. In a related matter, there is a need to review the working week, which is currently capped at 35 hours. This has not been addressed.

President Macron comes out of all this much weaker. He has not been able to appease the Gilets Jaunes. And he is now seen by many in France as just another Hollande, a younger version of the last President. But more arrogant, which is something that is also bringing him down. His communication style is not the best in terms of connecting with people and the media. 

I really hope he will be able to recover from the current predicament. He has three more years to go.

UN funds should not be cut

The new US Administration plans to cut in a big way the country´s financial contributions to the UN. This decision, if it materialises, will have a major impact on programmes and operations at a time of greater demands and some extreme dramatic situations. 

At this early stage, it is not possible to measure the effect of such a decision. 

It´s only possible to say that the UN has the experience, the logistics and the credibility that make such operations tremendously cost-effective and able to reach many difficult corners of the globe. This might be a weak argument in some circles in Washington. But it is a strong reason for many to keep fighting for a strong, efficient, and properly funded UN system. 

Greece´s very delicate position

Greece´s future is at play. One should be very clear about it. The new leadership will have to be very strategic in their negotiations with the key European actors. These actors have time and money and are in no rush to achieve an agreement. And they do not want to take any measure or agree on anything that might be perceived as a precedent, as a Pandora box.

The same cannot be said of the Greek side. They have little time and little money. They cannot engage in a very long process. Results will have to be achieved soon. And that puts them in a much weaker position. It is, in many ways, an almost impossible position. 

Ghana is not moving in the right direction

For a number of years Ghana has been a model country in West Africa. It has managed to move from chaotic politics and poor economic management in the Eighties to democracy and growth in the Nineties and thereafter. But recently things started to move in the wrong direction as the government gave up to extraordinary demands for salary increases and accumulated a high level of fiscal deficit. These actions were taken because the party in power thought they would bring in popular support. They brought economic bankruptcy.

Now, the situation turned to the worst, with the national currency losing value at a rapid pace and the state being unable to meet its commitments. The government had to call the IMF in. This will mean quite a number of public budget cuts. I do not think the Ghanaian public servants are ready for any type of salary reductions.

We might therefore see some political instability coming back to a country we would like to keep calling a model nation.   

Shut up, the big boys are cutting the EU budget!

The UK Prime Minister has drafted a letter to state his government's position regarding the EU budgets for the next years. Basically, David Cameron would see the budgetary appropriations that finance the functioning of the European institutions and the solidarity funds being capped at the level of the 2013 budget. Even the inflation figures would not be fully taken into account.

The PM has convinced France and Germany to support his demarche.

One understands budgets are being cut all over Europe, in each member state. Therefore, there is no political excuse to let the EU allocations, in the years to come, to follow a different course. That's the bright side of this initiative. The darker side is that the cuts will take place, if the will of these three governments prevails in Brussels, in the wrong accounts. The Common Agricultural Policy, for instance, which is an archaic compensatory system that benefits above all the French, German and British owners of very large farms,will remain untouched. No reduction, there. On the other side of this story, the cohesion funds, that are supposed to bring poorer European regions closer to the Union's wealth average, will see significant cuts.

Tant pis, as President Sarkozy would say. Only the weaker states need such cohesion mechanisms. Their voice can somehow be ignored.