French President Macron: ‘Europe is mortal’

The European Union’s survival is threatened by a series of challenges. French President Emmanuel Macron said this on Thursday. “Radical changes are required in defense, monetary and investment policies,” it said.

Seven years after making an impassioned plea at the Sorbonne for a more “sovereign” Europe, greater defense cooperation and European support for battery producers and other strategic industries, Emmanuel Macron returned to Paris university on Thursday. A month and a half before the European elections, the French president once again shed light on the future of the European Union.

According to him, threatening clouds are gathering over the project. “Our Europe is mortal,” it sounded ominously. ‘The choices we make will determine whether Europe dies. But we must make those choices today, because there is a great risk that Europe will be too weakened or sidetracked within a decade,” the French president warned in an almost two-hour speech to 500 guests.

He sees several potential threats to the common project. The war in Ukraine inevitably saddles Europe with concerns. In addition, Macron pointed out that not all global superpowers still ‘follow the rules of the game’. And he noted that “the values ​​of liberal democracy are increasingly criticized and challenged.”

To survive in that context, Europe has only one option, the French president believes. ‘To grow into a great power that commands respect, ensures its security and regains its strategic autonomy.’ Macron is determined to convince Europeans of the importance of ‘a credible European defense’ and suggested the development of an anti-missile shield on the continent.

He also reiterated his plea for strengthening the European defense industry and ‘taking on common debt’ to give that sector a boost, even though that subject is taboo in Germany. The president also suggested that a ‘European preference policy’ be included in the European treaties for the domains of defense and space.

In order to evolve towards a ‘prosperous Europe’, the Union must double its financial strength, according to the French president. This would allow it to invest ‘hundreds of billions of euros’ every year in new technologies, stronger defense and decarbonisation of the economy.

The European Central Bank should no longer be guided in its policy solely by inflation targets, Macron believes. He points out that the fight against climate change will drive up energy prices. By adapting the European treaties, he wants to add economic growth and climate objectives to the mandate of the institution headquartered in Frankfurt.

The French president finally noted that the call for an exit from the European Union and the euro zone has disappeared in populist circles. ‘The nationalists no longer propose to tear down the entire European construction. But they no longer want to respect the rules on co-ownership, they no longer want to invest and no longer want to pay rent. If that happens, the European project will die.’

When Macron spoke about the future of Europe in 2017, there were skeptical reactions. Not least in the Germany of then Chancellor Angela Merkel. Her successor, Olaf Scholz, did not silence the French president’s speech on Thursday. ‘France and Germany both strive for a strong Europe. Your speech contains good ideas on how we can achieve that goal,” he responded.

The skeptical reactions came mainly from France on Thursday. According to the opposition, Macron’s speech was mainly intended to breathe life into the European campaign of his party colleague Valérie Hayer. In the polls, the presidential bloc is lagging 10 percentage points behind Jordan Bardella’s right-wing populist Rassemblement National (RN).

‘The president speaks, but the French no longer listen. This was an electoral meeting where Macron lectured France, Europe and the world as usual,” tweeted Eric Ciotti, the leader of the conservative Les Républicains. “Macron is doing a macro thing: patting himself on the back for the past and presenting big concepts without really saying anything,” said the green ranks. According to socialist Patrick Kanner, the French want ‘actions, not words’.