Six years after his famous Sorbonne speech, what should be Emmanuel Macron’s next big EU initiative? A case can be made for Macron continuing to push forward his “European sovereignty” paradigm. But would that entail that he is now getting serious on EU institutional reform?

The French president’s current troubles can be traced back to 2005, when the French rejected a Constitution for Europe only for Paris to then ratify the Lisbon Treaty two years later. A return to parliamentarism is the only solution.

This weekend France and Germany celebrate a treaty that was born in discord and remains the manifestation of their continued disagreements. Yet celebrating the Franco-German myth remains an imperative of realpolitik.

Germany is in the middle of a vibrant debate about its future foreign policy and to what extent to help Urkaine. In France, Macron decides alone. Strangely, two different political cultures produce the same policy results.