Europe First: Emmanuel Macron towards Reforms and the Future of the European Union

The research objective of the article is to identify French interests towards EU systemic reform, which constitutes a specific ‘lever’ of France’s European policy. The first part of the analysis presents President E. Macron’s key EU reform proposals and France’s European policy priorities including the concept of European sovereignty as a method of building a ‘Europe of power’. The second part analyzes to what extent the Franco-German duo is driving change in the European political and institutional order. The results showed that the two states derive multifaceted and different benefits from their mutual cooperation, influencing European and global politics more broadly. The article tries to explain, based on the theory of liberal intergovernmentalism, how France uses the EU to promote its own national interests.