“Merzoni” isn’t a neologism that easily trips off the tongue, and it hasn’t fully taken hold in the world of European politics.

Yet, for months, a pragmatic alliance between German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has been building.

And despite the politicians being, in many ways, unlikely partners, the union has quietly been redefining Europe’s power balance. In the latest display of this dynamic, a joint-policy paper drawn up by Merz and Meloni is set to be delivered to European Union partners at an informal summit on Feb. 12, 2026, urging reforms to improve the bloc’s competitiveness.

As a scholar of European politics, history and culture, I see the union as being born of necessity but nonetheless serving the interests of both parties – and possibly those of the European Union, too.

Post-war European politics has seen the center of its gravity move before, but it has largely revolved around shifts to and from France or Germany, the bloc’s current two largest economies. The U.K.’s ability to dominate EU politics was always stymied by its lateness to the “European project” and ambivalence at home. And it was ended outright by a referendum in 2016 that saw the U.K.’s exit from the union.

For nearly a decade after Britain’s exit, Europe revolved around the axis of Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Emmanuel Macron, an alliance given the nickname “Merkron”: Merkel’s clumsy charm and cautious pragmatism paired with Macron’s charisma and sweeping European idealism. Their dual-stewardship helped steer the EU through Brexit, Donald Trump’s first presidency and the pandemic.

But times have changed.

Merkel is gone. She stepped down as German chancellor in December 2021. Macron, meanwhile, has struggled politically at home and increasingly resembles what diplomats and journalists describe as a European “Cassandra”: right in his warnings about global instability, yet less able to mobilize support domestically or across the continent to confront the issues.

The end of........

© The Conversation