PARIS (Reuters) – French President Emmanuel Macron welcomes new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to Paris for an inaugural working assembly on Friday, when the 2 strongest EU leaders will start the seek for frequent floor to sort out crises throughout the bloc and past.

Heading the agenda, French officers say, shall be tensions over Ukraine, which U.S. officers consider might face a Russian invasion early subsequent 12 months, and Macron’s priorities for France’s six-month European Union presidency, which begins on Jan. 1

Macron developed a pleasant relationship with Scholz’s long-time predecessor Angela Merkel, who broke with German custom by backing unprecedented joint debt-raising efforts through the COVID-19 pandemic.

However the two leaders have been additionally at odds over some key points together with Germany’s fuel imports from Russia – which denies it plans to invade Ukraine – find out how to defend Europe and its relationship with different large opponents together with China.

Different EU international locations have additionally labored to forge mini-alliances – such because the Frugal 4 of fiscally conservative western nations or the Visegrad 4 in japanese Europe – partly to redress perceived imbalances stemming from Franco-German coordination efforts.

“It is good when now we have a Franco-German couple that will get on properly… but it surely’s by no means sufficient,” Marion Gaillard, an knowledgeable on French-German relations at political research institute Sciences-Po in Paris stated.

French diplomats seem optimistic over the outlook for ties with Germany beneath Scholz, citing the “strategic sovereignty” within the coalition deal that took him to energy that they are saying echoes Macron’s push for European “strategic autonomy”.

One other key problem is find out how to finance a transition in the direction of greener power and whether or not nuclear power and could be thought of by the EU as renewable – and therefore subsidisable – sources.

Macron needs to construct new nuclear reactors in France, whereas German plans to section them out are properly established. Nonetheless, the brand new German coalition settlement makes no point out of the problem, leaving room for compromise, Paris believes.