John Keiger

The corruption scandal embroiling the European parliament and the European Union’s institutions at the highest level is shaping up to be its biggest to date. Belgian police have arrested Eva Kaili, a vice-president of the parliament, and three others in an investigation into alleged bribes involving spectacular sums in cash, allegedly from Qatar, to influence EU officials and parliamentary voting. ‘The shockwave of 'Qatargate' is Le Monde’s take on a story it says threatens to 'destabilise Europe’s institutions’. This isn't an exaggeration: the probe ripples out to the whole progressive ecosystem surrounding the parliament. Among the suspects, according to the BBC, is former MEP Pier Antonio Panzeri, who now manages the human rights group Fight Impunity.

Guess who turned up in Bangkok this week at the 21-nation Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting? The forum, which includes the US, China, Australia, Japan, Russia, but not France, was visited by none other than President Macron. ‘You must be asking yourself what a French president is doing here’, he charmed in English.  Macron claimed to be the first European leader to be invited to the forum. He insisted he was there because France is ‘a country of the region’. According to the Elysée this invitation ‘validates the Indo-Pacific strategy launched in 2018’. It does indeed, but with far more subtle ramifications.

Some supporters of the EU might struggle with the concept, but Europe is about much more than just what unfolds in Brussels. The EU’s 27 states may be a large part of Europe, but the two are not coterminous. Nor, more importantly, do they all have the same interests. The newly created European Political Community (EPC) had its first meeting in Prague over the last couple of days. Including those states on the fringes of Europe, as the EPC does, the number in attendance was 44 (with Belarus and Russia excluded). Beyond the EU 27 there is Turkey, the UK, Ukraine, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Liechtenstein, six Western Balkans nations, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

The tribute paid by France to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has been heartfelt, fulsome and moving. French media across the board have paid generous homage, as though to one of their finest, to Britain’s longest serving monarch – surpassed in world history only by Louis XIV acceding as a babe-in-arms. This vicarious Panthéonisation was admirably encapsulated by Emmanuel Macron, the 10th French president the British sovereign had known. In a moving video in English posted on Twitter on Friday, foregrounded against the Union Jack, he poignantly encapsulated the feelings of his people and their ‘emptiness’ at the British monarch’s death: ‘To you she was your Queen; to us she was the Queen’.

Is 'Le Bromance' really back on? Boris Johnson suggested as much at the G7 summit in Bavaria this week, where he strolled arm-in-arm with Emmanuel Macron. Yet when one considers the breadth of subjects the two avoided in their discussions – no Northern Ireland Protocol, cross-Channel migration, or Aukus – it is hard to believe the basis of their renascent friendship is better Franco-British relations. The reality is that their jaunt overseas, epitomised by Bojo and Manu’s communal clowning, comes as a blissful diversionary and recreational break from domestic woes. Their new-found fraternity may lie in shared solace at their strikingly similar political predicaments. Macron may have been reelected president on 24 April, but over half of his 58.

The single headline across the front page of the centre-left daily Libération said it all: ‘La Gifle’. But much more than a slap in the face, Emmanuel Macron has taken a heavyweight sock in the jaw. With only 245 seats for his ‘Ensemble!’ grouping, the French president is a country mile from having a parliamentary absolute majority (289). Then there is the drubbing his lieutenants took with the ousting of three ministers, the president of the national assembly and the leader of his parliamentary LREM party. All lost their seats. Sunday’s legislative results are a full-frontal humiliation for Macron personally, ideologically, politically and institutionally.

Emmanuel Macron should get a new historical advisor. He continues to repeat – this time at his Kyiv press conference on Thursday – that Russia must not be humiliated following its invasion and war against Ukraine. Politicians indiscriminately pluck at historical examples to justify controversial policies. For Macron, the aftermath of the First World War serves as a warning against the dangers of humiliating adversaries. According to the French president, humiliation of Germany in the 1919 Versailles Peace treaty resulted in the allies losing the peace and Germany plotting revenge and renewed war twenty years later. He actually turned at this point to German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who had accompanied him (with Mario Draghi of Italy), to emphasise the point.