Case closed: no joint Franco-German push in order to transform French permanent seat at the UN Security Council into an EU seat. Instead, both pretend to push for German permanent seat, a face-saving solution for Berlin.
This episode once more demonstrates, the Germany and France are living on different planets when it comes to defense and power politics. For France, the permanent seat is a vital element of its ambition to play great power politics.
For France equally, EU foreign and security is an instrument, a tool to reach national goals.
Germany by contrast wants to outsource difficult decisions to a higher multilateral level of institutions, especially EU and UN.
These fundamentally different approaches make it very difficult for Germany and France to even properly discuss foreign and security issues. Much harder to cooperate and coordinate on substance, beyond the level of political rhetoric.
