Less than a week ago, President Macron was lambasting Italy for signing agreements with China in the context of their New Silk Road, alias President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), in the same breath he was criticizing China for attempting to undermine Europe with new trade individual country deals under the pretext of BRI. However, Italy, also scolded by Brussels for her single-handed deals with China, was, in fact, the first G7 country for signing a number of contracts with China to use Italian ports under the BRI, making Italy also the first official EU partner of China’s BRI.
In his zeal of becoming Europe’s new king, Macron also called on all EU members not to go their own way with China, but to jointly negotiate with China “new deals” under the BRI. A joint EU to be strong and equal to the economic and trade behemoth, China. Indeed, solidarity is always ‘good’, but Europe is the last bit of Mother Earth’s territory that has ever shown any solidarity and cohesion among her neighbors and co-members of this illustrious non-union club, called the European Union.
Yet, surprise-surprise! On President Xi’s next stop, Paris, coming from Italy, Macron rolled out the red carpet for the Chinese President and, according to RT, went on to sign billions worth of new contracts with the Asian leader. If this looked like a Macron U-turn, it was a Macron U-turn. As an afterthought he invited German Chancellor, Madame Merkel and EU President…