French President Emmanuel Macron detailed his vision for a more sovereign Europe at the Nexus Institute at The Hague on Tuesday 11 April, as part of his visit to the Netherlands. The EU must reduce its dependence and strengthen its sovereignty, he said. For him, this should, in particular, enable it to “choose its partners and its own destiny”.
The EU’s sovereignty, including its economic one, must be based on five main pillars, according to the French President: the EU’s competitiveness, its industrial policy, the protection of its citizens, reciprocity in external relations and cooperation on the multilateral level.
He highlighted the EU’s dependencies in many policy areas and elaborated on the different ways to reduce them through the five pillars. Recent proposals from the European Commission, such as the Net-Zero Industry Act (see EUROPE 13143/1), green transition subsidies, trade defence tools or free trade agreements that respect the Paris Agreement, are all steps in the right direction, said the French President.
From a more geopolitical point of view, Emmanuel Macron supported the idea of a Europe that does not systematically align itself with the positions of certain allies: “If you accept to lose your sovereignty, if you accept to depend on other powers, you put yourself in a position in which you are not able to decide for yourself”, he stressed.
The President’s words resonate with those that he used in an interview with several media outlets published on 9 April. On return from his trip to Beijing, he told journalists that the EU did not necessarily have to “adapt to the agenda of others”, in this case that of Washington, on security issues, particularly in the Taiwan Strait.
The trap for Europe, he said, would be that it “gets caught up in a world disruption and crises that are not its own”, he told journalists.
This position has provoked numerous reactions in the US and the EU. Starting with the supporters of a strong transatlantic alliance: “To protect our freedom, democracies must stand together in defence of a rules-based world, in Ukraine and Taiwan. We need to strengthen our alliance with the US!”, declared the EPP group Chair, Manfred Weber (German).
For his Greens/EFA colleague and Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with China, Reinhard Bütikofer (German), Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Beijing was “a disaster”. “The pipe dream of the EU’s ‘strategic autonomy’ to become a ‘third superpower’ is beyond the pale”, he said.
Many commentators misconstrued the French President’s desire to distance himself from the United States in geopolitical terms. US Senator Marco Rubio (Republican) questioned whether Mr Macron was speaking on behalf of the EU, before recalling the US effort to support Ukraine in what he said was “a European war”.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, who left for Washington on 11 April, said that the alliance with the United States was “the foundation of European security” and that it would be the top priority of the Polish Presidency of the EU Council. This will be held in the first half of 2025.
As for the European Commission, whose President, Ursula von der Leyen, took part in a meeting with Emmanuel Macron and Chinese President Xi Jinping on 6 April (see EUROPE 13158/2), she did not wish to comment on the French President’s remarks. Commission spokesman Eric Mamer only recalled the EU’s position on Taiwan, namely respect for the “one China” principle, and opposition to “any unilateral change to the status quo”, including by force.
He also said that “the EU’s actions vis-à-vis China, but also its own capacities” were what mattered most. He made reference as well to Ms von der Leyen’s speech on China of 30 March (see EUROPE 13153/17).
The High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, will in turn visit Beijing from 13 to 15 April to discuss foreign policy, regional issues and bilateral relations. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)