On Thursday 2 July, the French Minister for the Armed Forces, Florence Parly, stressed the importance for the EU to have a capacity for autonomous defence action.
"France and the EU must have the capacity to act in the name of strategic autonomy, which is absolutely essential for us in a world (...) where the superpowers are fighting a battle over the heads of Europeans", she stressed at a hearing before the European Parliament's Subcommittee on Security and Defence. "We have a shared...