Macron’s EU plans criticised

A pro-government daily carries two articles within three days criticising President Macron of France for his views about a more integrated European Union.

In Magyar Hírlap, Sándor Faggyas fulminates against President Macron, who famously said that nationalism was a betrayal of patriotism. His comments were made in the presence of a dozen foreign dignitaries on the centenary of the ceasefire that put an end to World War One. The latter included President Trump of the United States who had called himself a proud nationalist just days before. Faggyas thinks Mr Macron hit a low point with his remark and at any rate, the opposite of nationalism is globalism – the worldview that Mr Macron represents. Faggyas defines globalism as ‘a new variant of imperialism’.

In the same daily two days later, on Monday, Mariann Őry reacts to Mr Macron’s latest proposal to create what he calls ‘European sovereignty’. The challenges Europe is facing, the French President said in an address to the lower House of the German Parliament in Berlin, cannot be met without member states relinquishing much more of their sovereignty to the European Union. Chancellor Merkel of Germany basically agreed. Őry believes, on the other hand, that there is a growing demand among member states to regain some of the sovereignty they have already lost. Their wish is all the more legitimate, she argues, since the European Union has been highly inefficient in meeting some of the most recent challenges, including uncontrolled mass immigration to Europe.

Tags: EU, Macron, sovereignty