BRUSSELS — Last September, the enthusiastic new French president, Emmanuel Macron, laid out big plans for the European Union, intended to give fresh spark and purpose to a bloc preoccupied with migration, populism and Britain’s exit, and to breathe new life into Franco-German leadership.

Then, as so often with the 28-nation bloc, reality and national interests got in the way. Last fall’s German election badly weakened Chancellor Angela Merkel, who needed six months to assemble a governing coalition, one that is even more wary about overhauls to the eurozone.

Last month’s Italian election gave the upper hand to populist, Euroskeptic parties that want to abandon pension changes and expand Italy’s worrisome national debt, adding to German jitters.

So after all the hoopla, Mr. Macron’s proposed overhaul has been gutted. If not “as dead as a dormouse,” as the German weekly Der Spiegel opined before his visit to Berlin on Thursday, his European initiatives have been heavily watered down, like the small glass of red wine French parents give to children.