It is tempting to indulge in some typical British lip-curling over the grand-sounding Treaty of Franco-German Cooperation and Integration signed on Tuesday by Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle in French), capital of Charlemagne’s lost but not forgotten ninth-century European empire.

The pact, reaffirming the 1963 Élysée treaty that set the two countries on the path to post-war reconciliation, is intended to reassert the centrality of the Franco-German partnership in a splintering Europe beset by resurgent nationalism, rightwing populism and Brexit. Cynics will say it is also an attempt to reassert the fading relevance of Merkel and Macron.

Yet it’s not necessary to be an English Eurosceptic to have serious doubts about this project. Macron was accused of “high treason” this week by the French right for supposedly secretly planning to surrender Alsace and Lorraine. Marine Le Pen, the leader of National Rally (formerly the National Front), claimed French schoolchildren would be forced to speak German.

Merkel was also attacked at home for falling into the trap of appearing to endorse, at least in theory, some of Macron’s more high-flown ideas about a joint eurozone budget, banking union, common taxes and European army. Alexander Gauland, leader of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, said Macron was trying to grab “German money”.

Such claims are nonsense. So, too, is the idea put about by Eurosceptic media in Britain that Paris and Berlin are conspiring to seize full control of the EU and impose a new, shared hegemony at the expense of smaller states. The real problem with the new treaty is that it is mostly a bland, unambitious fudge.

The soaring ideals and aspirations enunciated by the newly elected Macron in his Sorbonne speech in 2017, about a Europe of democracy, sovereignty, unity and security, find but a faint, distorted echo today. The treaty has little concrete to say about key, contentious issues facing Europe such as migration, social fracture and alienation, and environmental challenges.

It focuses, for example, on closer governmental coordination, intelligence sharing and cross-border cooperation – all of which have been mooted before. But it skates around differences over arms exports – Germany banned weapons sales to Saudi Arabia after Jamal Khashoggi’s murder; France did not.

The pact is also silent on the vexed issue of “sharing” France’s permanent UN security council seat, as suggested by some in Berlin. Meanwhile, Macron’s proposals about economic stimulus, social investment, a financial transaction tax and bank insurance have been lost in the mists of Germany’s innate fiscal caution.

In short, the Aachen treaty could be said to symbolise all that is bad about “Europe”, as viewed through jaundiced British eyes. It sounds fine and dandy, but it ducks the hard issues, dodges tough decisions and, in seeking out inoffensive common ground, forfeits any sense of vision.

That is what will be said – and it is fundamentally wrong. In their different ways, with numerous caveats and hesitations, and notwithstanding their considerable domestic political difficulties, Macron and Merkel are bravely trying to achieve three distinct and laudable objectives.

One is to remind Europeans, including the Brexiting British, that reconciling these two great continental powers was a signal achievement of the second half of the 20th century. It was a key British policy aim. And the ensuing partnership was a crucial cornerstone in the construction of the EU, still by far the world’s most successful model of inter-state collaboration. It helped bring unprecedented peace, security and prosperity to Europe.

“Seventy-four years, a single human lifetime, after the end of world war two, what seems self-evident is being called into question again,” Merkel said on signing the treaty. “That’s why, first of all, there needs to be a new commitment toward our responsibility within the EU, a responsibility held by Germany and France.”

Second, by reaffirming their partnership, France and Germany are not seeking to dominate but to safeguard those hard-won gains in the face of a dangerous pan-European upsurge in nationalist sentiment, divisive rightwing demagoguery, and out-and-out racism and xenophobia.

And they are seeking to compensate for the damaging loss of Britain as an active partner in that ongoing fight. It is to Britain’s great collective shame that it appears set on abandoning the field and retreating into delusional nostalgia for an imagined past at the very moment when the forces of reaction are gathering new strength.

Last, Macron and Merkel are doing what any British leader worth their salt should instinctively be doing too: namely reinforcing Europe’s defences against the depredations, current and future, of a US that is increasingly intent on exploiting the privileges conferred by global leadership while rejecting the accompanying responsibilities; and against the rise of a ruthless new superpower, China, whose authoritarian, anti-democratic practices fundamentally challenge European values of independence, freedom of action and individual rights.

Thank goodness Macron and Merkel, for all their faults and weaknesses, can still see the bigger picture. These days, for the most part, Britain’s small-minded leaders cannot see beyond their rather stuck-up noses.

• Simon Tisdall is a foreign affairs commentator