elfnullelf Webinar on the German elections and an outlook on the French Council Presidency
The cards of Franco-German relations are being reshuffled. Germany has voted, France’s presidential election is coming up soon – and in the meantime France is taking over the European Council presidency. What priorities will the new governments set and what does this mean for the European Union? Germany has long held a certain weight in European policymaking. Angela Merkel helped to lead the European response to the global financial crisis, sovereign debt crisis, migration crisis, and more recently, the pandemic. After 16 years Merkel, who as Chancellor worked on European level closely with four French presidents (Chirac, Sarkozy, Hollande, Macron), will most likely hand over her sceptre to Olaf Scholz, the Chancellor candidate of the social democrats.
Now as the dust has settled, we at elfnullelf tried to make sense of what is happening. On November 18th 2021, we analyzed the election results, provided an update on the coalition talks and got some first-hand insight from Paris and Berlin. We had the honor to discuss things with Norbert Barthle (Parliamentary State Secretary) and Philippe Manière (President and co-founder of Vae Solis Communications). Mr Barthle shared his analysis of the election’s results and what has happened since. Mr. Manière joined us from Paris to let us know, how France felt about the recent developments in Germany and what to expect from the future French-German relation between the (probably new) heads of government.
The webinar was moderated by our Senior Consultant Florian von Gierke. Our Consultant Helena Ballreich joined him in the elfnullelf-studio in Berlin to present the election’s results and update us on the subsequent developments.
