Crisis for France and Germany comes at terrible moment for EU

France and Germany, the EU’s two most influential countries, have gone missing just when Europe needs them most.

Donald Trump will be back in the White House next month, bringing challenges on defence, Ukraine and trade, but Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz have other things to worry about.

In Paris, the minority government brought in after summer snap elections is on the brink of collapse and faces a motion of no confidence after forcing through a budget without a vote.

Emmanuel Macron cannot dissolve parliament again until June. He is left with the stark choice of appointing another short-lived government or resigning.

Mr Macron retains responsibility for foreign policy but is a lame duck domestically and more master of ceremonies than master of his destiny.

Germany’s dysfunctional coalition government, meanwhile, collapsed after Olaf Scholz sacked his finance minister on Nov 5.

The unpopular Chancellor, a man who could define prevarication if he ever got around to it, is a dead man walking before elections in February.

Had he got his way, the vote would have been a month later.

France and Germany are not like any other EU member state. Germany remains Europe’s largest economy. France is the EU’s major military power. Both are founder members of a bloc created to stop them fighting another war against each other.

When the “engine” of Paris and Berlin works together in Brussels, things happen.

But its leaders are weak, engulfed in their own domestic political chaos and, in any case, do not really get on.

Their standing is weakened by suspicions that Mr Scholz is running his campaign as the “peace chancellor”, undermining support for Ukraine, and the fact that France has broken EU fiscal rules.

Europe needs leadership now. Mr Trump is threatening the EU with a trade war, and Washington’s aid to Ukraine appears certain to be cut, leaving it to Europe to plug the gap in aid and weapons.

Mr Trump wants more European defence spending if US security guarantees against Russian aggression are to continue.

Further complicating the matter is Ukraine, a candidate to join the EU, which is under building pressure to start peace talks with Russia.

Rudderless Europe faces being on the sidelines of a deal that could redraw the security architecture of the continent.

Finding huge sums for Ukraine, ramping up the European defence industry and developing a common defence and foreign policy will be hugely difficult.

In times of crisis, EU governments have always looked to Paris and Berlin to provide the catalyst for breakthroughs in tough intergovernmental negotiations in Brussels.

There are few alternatives.

Ursula von der Leyen began her second five-year term as European Commission president on Dec 1.

She has been an effective figurehead for the EU’s Ukraine policy but won’t be able to command all the bloc’s prime ministers and presidents in the European Council.

Italy’s Georgia Meloni is being talked up as a possible “Trump whisperer”, but her Euroscepticism and hard-Right past damage her leadership credentials in Brussels.

Mr Scholz is expected to be replaced by the centre-Right CDU leader Friedrich Merz in February.

He comes from the same German party as Mrs von der Leyen and the two could form a powerful alliance.

Mr Macron will make it a triumvirate after patching up relations with a commission president he played a key role in appointing for her first term.

Mr Merz will first have to form a coalition government, and the EU’s wheels turn slowly when it comes to reaching a common position.

But Mr Trump has vowed to end the war in Ukraine as quickly as possible soon and impose tariffs on day one of his presidency.

The new engine will have a lot of work to do to catch up.