WHAT a study in contrasts. To the strains of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”, the anthem of the European Union, Emmanuel Macron strides manfully across the courtyard of the Louvre to deliver his victory speech. France’s new president vows to defend the EU, “the common destiny the peoples of our continent have given ourselves”. A few months later, after a bruising election result, Angela Merkel gives a plodding press conference in a functional room in Berlin, tentatively extending a hand to the parties her wounded Christian Democrats must woo into coalition. As for Europe, do not get your hopes up. “Today,” she says, “isn’t the day to say what will work and what won’t.”

The future of the EU lies somewhere in the gap between a bold young president whose ambitions extend far beyond France’s borders, and a cautious chancellor approaching her political end, running a country not yet ready to accept the mantle of leadership many would like to thrust upon it. Mr Macron campaigned on a promise to shake up France and to do his best to repeat the trick in the EU. But during Germany’s pedestrian election campaign Mrs Merkel neither sought nor obtained a mandate for a European overhaul. Many of her voters see no reason for it.

This week Mr Macron’s vision for Europe found its fullest expression yet, with a sweeping 100-minute address at the Sorbonne that took in everything from defence co-operation to agricultural subsidies—the third rail of French politics—and culminated in a plan for a five-year “transformation” of the EU between 2019 and 2024, the year in which, not coincidentally, Paris will host the Olympic Games. His riposte to those who found all this a little hasty was delivered in full Macronese: “Procrastination”, the president proclaimed, “is the cousin of languor.” It was stirring stuff, if a little dirigiste for many: Mr Macron’s calls for corporate-tax harmonisation, or for a single market based on “convergence rather than competition”, will jangle nerves in liberal-minded corners of Europe. Still, Mr Macron’s proposals may now form the starting-point for discussion among the EU’s leaders, who were preparing to meet in Estonia as The Economist went to press. “Mr Macron”, says one EU official, “has stolen the show.”

It is impossible to imagine Mrs Merkel making this speech. The chancellor has dominated the EU not by pursuing anything so marvellous as a vision, but by placing herself, and the clout of the large country she runs, at the heart of each of the crises the EU has battled, while other leaders, including successive French presidents, have retired hurt. Do not expect this to change. The notion that Germany’s election result makes Mr Macron’s life much harder is an overstatement—but that is because there was no conceivable coalition that would have bowed before his demands. Still, his room for operation is even less than it was. Having successfully carved out a mildly Eurosceptic niche, the pro-market Free Democrats (FDP), one of Mrs Merkel’s expected partners, will exact a price on EU policy during the coalition talks.

That does not mean Mr Macron is doomed to achieve nothing at all. He urged renewal of the Élysée Treaty, the compact that has governed Franco-German relations for over half a century, and had lots to say on migration and security, preoccupations in Berlin that might form the basis for an early Franco-German deal (though a stitch-up risks alienating other members). Some details will rankle, but Mr Macron’s overarching vision, of a Europe that defangs populists by protecting its citizens from the rougher edges of globalisation, is not unpopular in Germany, and will face weaker opposition inside the EU once Britain leaves.

Sensibly, Mr Macron chose not to press his argument that the euro zone needs rebuilding from the ground up, including a vast budget that he has previously suggested should be worth several percentage points of euro-zone GDP (the current EU budget is just 1.2%). Advancing these claims just as Germany’s parties were beginning to jostle for position in coalition talks would have backfired spectacularly; immediately after the election Christian Lindner, the FDP’s leader, ruled out signing up to a big euro-zone budget. No doubt Mr Macron remains convinced that the currency area needs the overhaul he promised during his presidential campaign. But even Jupiter knows when to stay his hand.

This one weird trick could fix the euro zone

Mr Macron will still hope to obtain a foothold for prototypes of his lesser ideas: a small budget for investments; a (rather titular) “finance minister” for the euro zone; a tweak to its bail-out fund. The European Commission, which has plans of its own, will test the waters with proposals in December; the euro-zone’s 19 leaders will chew them over at a summit soon afterwards.

But the real action may lie elsewhere. Five years ago the euro zone agreed to establish a banking union. The results were impressive, but governments have failed to agree on all the scheme’s elements, including a European fiscal backstop to rescue troubled banks and a common insurance scheme for deposits. Breaking this logjam, rather than any institutional jiggery-pokery, will be the first, and best, test of whether France and Germany can overcome their differences to put the single currency on a more stable footing. Along with plans to deepen Europe’s capital markets, spreading financial risk and breaking the “doom-loop” between governments and banks overburdened with sovereign debt may do much more for the euro’s resilience than a modest budget or a toothless finance minister.

Mr Macron did not mention the banking union this week: he was seeking to inspire his listeners, not put them to sleep. But he knows well that it will take more than fine words to overcome German suspicions that the French (and other budget-busters) simply want their fiscal recklessness subsidised by the more frugal. The scene is set: after a long winter of crisis, the political and economic winds for Europe are now fair. Mr Macron and Mrs Merkel will not get a better chance.