French President Emmanuel Macron and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez signed a “friendship and cooperation treaty” in Barcelona on Thursday, taking the relationship between Paris and Madrid to the highest level, as the Franco-German duo go through a difficult stage. This treaty, which provides for a strengthening of the bilateral relationship on migration, defence, energy and youth issues, was initialed by the two leaders under the dome of the National Art Museum of Catalonia.
“Highly symbolic” for the French presidency, it is only the third of its kind signed in Europe by France after that of the Élysée, initialed in 1963 with Germany and since completed by that of Aix-la-Chapelle in 2019, and that of the Quirinal, signed with Italy in 2021. Spain has only signed a comparable treaty with Portugal.
A first reaction to the demonstration against the pension reform
Chance of the calendar, the French head of state will spend the whole day in the Catalan metropolis at the very moment when, in France, the demonstrations and massive strikes began against his pension reform. Discreet in recent days on the major reform of his second term, he however commented on this social mobilization during his joint press conference with the head of the Spanish government. Emmanuel Macron said he hoped that the demonstrations against the reform will take place “without excesses, violence or degradation”, and assured of the “spirit of dialogue” and the “determination” of the executive to bring about a reform ” fair and responsible”.
By initialing a new friendship treaty with a neighbor in southern Europe, Paris wants to set in stone the strengthening of its relations with neighbors other than Germany at a time when the Franco-German engine of the EU often appeared short of breath. The Franco-Spanish treaty is “very important. Because basically the linguistic, cultural and economic life (between the two countries) was far ahead of the political structure. We have a real relationship of friendship with Pedro Sanchez. And so there, we are really going to give a framework”, underlined Emmanuel Macron in an interview published Thursday by the daily El País.
A “very proactive” European response to American subsidies
Relations between Paris and Berlin have recently suffered from several disputes, from energy to defence, which led to a postponement of the Franco-German Council of Ministers scheduled for the end of October. Tensions have since subsided and this council will take place on January 22 in Paris, a symbolic date which will coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of the Elysée Treaty.
According to the Elysée, Emmanuel Macron also had in mind to concretize in Barcelona a “common line with Madrid” on the European response to theInflation Reduction Act, US President Joe Biden’s massive investment plan in the energy transition. The French President and the Spanish Prime Minister have displayed their common vision on the need for a “very proactive response” to the massive subsidies of American President Joe Biden’s investment plan in the energy transition.
“We are both aware of the fact that we must react in a very proactive way”, in order to “give a very clear message to our companies”, declared Emmanuel Macron to the press. “Europe is going through a difficult time because of the war (in Ukraine, editor’s note) but also because of commercial decisions taken by Europe’s allies such as the United States,” said Pedro Sanchez. “We welcome the fact that the United States is entering the green transition, but we must find an agreement so that this commitment to the green transition does not mean the deindustrialization of Europe,” added the head of the Spanish government.
The strategic project of the “green” hydrogen pipeline
The signing of the Franco-Spanish treaty comes three months after the lifting of one of the main disagreements between the two countries which decided, with Portugal, to bury the “Midcat” gas pipeline project, which Paris opposed, for the replace it with a “green” hydrogen pipeline linking Barcelona to Marseille and called “H2Med”.
Barcelona was rightly chosen by Pedro Sanchez as the host city of the summit to underline the importance of this strategic project but also to show that the situation has calmed down in Catalonia, the scene of an attempt at secession in 2017. thus, several thousand Catalan separatists demonstrated Thursday morning very close to the summit to protest against its holding, to cries of “neither France nor Spain!”.