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"European centralism, European statism, the communitarization of debts, the Europeanization of social systems, and the minimum wage would be the wrong approach," Kramp-Karrenbauer wrote in an op-ed for Welt am Sonntag under the headline, "Getting Europe right."
The CDU chief, who took over from Angela Merkel in December, said she agrees with the French president that "Europe must get stronger" but argued that the answer is not to create more European institutions and transfer power away from national governments.
In his call for a "European Renaissance" earlier this week, Macron proposed multiple new institutions and a major conference to overhaul the Continent's political structures, as well as an EU minimum wage and an EU bank to help fight climate change.
Rather than defending the “imperfect status quo of today’s EU against populist accusations,” Kramp-Karrenbauer said Europe needs a strategy that links national and European approaches.
For Europe to remain strong and united, she argued, “the work of the European institutions cannot claim any moral superiority over the collaborative effort of national governments."
"A new Europe cannot be founded without the nation states: They provide democratic legitimacy and identification," Kramp-Karrenbauer wrote. "It is the member states that formulate and bring together their own interests at the European level. This is what gives Europeans their international weight.”
In a move that is sure to rankle French counterparts, Kramp-Karrenbauer also advocated for the EU to have a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council to “urgently” improve the EU’s ability to act in foreign security policy, and to abolish the second seat of the European Parliament in Strasbourg. Both are ideas Paris rejects. [...]
Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer letter: Getting Europe right
Related analysis on Financial Times: A new Franco-German narrative for Europe
Related Financial Times editorial: A conservative German response to Macron’s EU vision