Macron's “European Project”: Four Years Later (French Plans and the Realities of the European Union)

Abstract

The initiatives of large-scale reforms of the European Union to accelerate European integration and to achieve “European sovereignty” were one of the main topics of the presidential program of E. Macron. For the first time in the political history of the Fifth Republic, the future head of state synchronized the implementation of internal reforms in France with an ambitious “European project”. The article analyzes the progress of the implementation of the European program of Macron and examines the reasons which have not allowed to achieve the implementation of the plans. The author summarizes the preliminary results of the European policy of Paris, holding that the French leader's European initiatives were unrealistic since they did not sufficiently take into account the current complex realities and contradictions of the European Union, as well as the past negative experience of France in promoting the idea of creating a “Europe-Power”. A forecast is made about a possible new version of Macron's “E