The symbolism could hardly be clearer: Emmanuel Macron will spend his first full day as president of France in Berlin visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
The man who campaigned as an ardent pro-European, who greeted the crowds at his victory rally to the strains of the European Union anthem, and who pledged at his inauguration on Sunday to “reform and relaunch the EU” is signaling that this work starts immediately.
Yet Mr. Macron may find the challenge of overhauling the EU even more daunting than reforming France.
His ambitions for the EU extend from defense to border control, to climate change to tackling so-called social dumping—the attempt to gain a competitive advantage through looser fiscal, environmental and labor-market policies. But the most eye-catching aspect of his European agenda is his proposal to create a eurozone budget overseen by a eurozone finance minister.