EU at crossroads: Why 2022 will be a big year for France and Europe

EMMANUEL Macron, perhaps Europe's most powerful politician in the post-Merkel era, has a busy 2022 ahead as he seeks re-election in April. However, what makes this year especially frenetic for the French president is that Paris also assumes next week the rotating 6-month presidency of the European Union at a key moment for the 450 million population bloc.

Macron has ambitious plans for reform of the 27-member European club. Not only is there significant concern about the Russian military build-up along the border with Ukraine, the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus risks a new recession with recent data indicating that the EU's largest economy, Germany, for instance, is in the middle of a downturn already.

It is in this context, in which there is also a potentially historic power shift underway in the club of continental leaders post-Merkel, that Macron perceives a window of opportunity for pushing reforms that are favoured also - by and large - by some other key centrist and leftist EU leaders. This includes Italian and Spanish Prime Ministers Mario Draghi and Pedro Sanchez respectively, and potentially new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz too.