Skip to main content
Gifts from The Morning Star
Macron’s bid to rescue the EU
The French president and the European Central Bank have identified ‘more of the same’ neoliberal agenda as the answer to the EU’s woes – but can post-Brexit Britain grasp the opportunity to reject continued austerity, asks NICK WRIGHT
France's President Emmanuel Macron gestures as he delivers a speech at the 19th Francophonie summit in Villers-Cotterets, France, October 4, 2024

LAST week French President Emmanuel Macron chose the Berlin Global Dialogue meeting to argue for an even more deregulated European Union.

France and Germany were traditionally united in insisting on a level playing field and competition rules to prevent the weaker and less industrialised economies of the EU from “unfairly” competing on pay, conditions and labour standards.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Monica Crowley, White House chief of protocol (obstructed at left) greets European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, right, upon arriving to meet with President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, August 18, 2025
Features / 28 August 2025
28 August 2025

US tariffs have had Von der Leyen bowing in submission, while comments from the former European Central Bank leader call for more European political integration and less individual state sovereignty. All this adds up to more pain and austerity ahead, argues NICK WRIGHT

Guillaume Périgois
Politics / 14 August 2025
14 August 2025

Starmer sabotaged Labour with his second referendum campaign, mobilising a liberal backlash that sincerely felt progressive ideals were at stake — but the EU was then and is now an entity Britain should have nothing to do with, explains NICK WRIGHT

United States Vice-President JD Vance, right, shakes hands w
Features / 12 February 2025
12 February 2025
The EU and Nato are umbilically tied – but what will the new Trump era and a reconfiguration of US interests mean for the war in Ukraine, asks VINCE MILLS
Chinese-made BYD passenger battery electric vehicles and plu
Features / 12 November 2024
12 November 2024
New tariffs on Chinese electric cars protect European capitalists at European consumers’ and workers’ expense, writes BHABANI SHANKAR NAYAK, showing a continuation of neocolonial trade practices