One goal – two ways: Testing the feasibility of Macron and Juncker’s EU visions

Summary:

After years of crisis mode, the EU’s economy has slowly begun to pick up. Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and French President Emmanuel Macron are trying to make use of this new sense of momentum, presenting their visions on how the European Union should look in the future. Their common goal – expressed within a two week period in Juncker’s State of the Union speech and in Macron’s “Initiative for Europe”-address – is to kick start and to navigate a public debate on the direction as well as the policy substance of integration. This coordinated approach to put forward opinions on the future of the EU displays both presidents’ sense of leadership to accomplish their own goals which point in a similar direction.