Seven years after his first speech at the Sorbonne University in Paris (see EUROPE 11870/1), French President Emmanuel Macron outlined, on Thursday 25 April, a new vision for the European Union ahead of the European elections to be held between 6 and 9 June.
The President followed on from his speech in September 2017, in which he had pointed to “nationalism, identitarianism, protectionism and sovereignism as a retreat” as the main threats to the Union.
At the time, he wanted to rebuild a “sovereign, united and democratic Europe” and listed a number of priorities, including security, immigration, sustainable development, digital regulation and the economy.
On Thursday 25 April, the French President outlined the contours of a “powerful Europe” that controls its borders, strengthens its security and defence and defends its values, but which also finds itself at a “tipping point”, particularly because of the new geopolitical context.
The French President now believes that the EU “faces a mortal threat”, due to “economic decline, the rise of illiberalism and the return of war” with the war in Ukraine.
“The question of peace and war on our continent, and our ability to ensure our security or not, is at stake today”, warned the President.
Devoting the first part of his 108-minute speech to the successes achieved over the last seven years, notably on the common debt during Covid-19, vaccines and digital regulation with the DSA and the DMA, he then set out the actions he felt were necessary to achieve this powerful Europe.
In terms of defence, Emmanuel Macron called for a “powerful Europe” that “commands respect, ensures its security” and takes back “its strategic autonomy”.
Faced with “uninhibited” adversaries, “we need to develop (...) a credible defence of the European continent”, which will make it possible to build the security guarantees expected by Europe’s partners.
In addition to building a European pillar within NATO, the President announced that he would be inviting his partners “in the coming months” to take part in a European defence initiative “which must first of all be a strategic concept from which we will then derive the relevant capabilities: anti-missile, deep strike, and all other useful capabilities”. He also called for the creation of a “European cybersecurity and cyber defence capability”.
The President advocated as well the creation of a “strategic intimacy” between European armies.
In his view, this should involve the launch of a second phase of the European intervention initiative, the development of European security and regional defence strategies in the Mediterranean, Africa, the Indo-Pacific region and the Arctic “to unite (our) visions and better distribute (our) forces among Europeans”, and a European military academy to train future military and civilian leaders in security and defence issues.
Another priority for Mr Macron and the European Commission is to strengthen the European defence industry. He called for “faster, better and more European production”, echoing Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s call for “spending more, better and in Europe". For him, European preference in strategic sectors such as defence and space should be enshrined in the European treaties.
Mr Macron hoped as well that the EU would succeed in building European industrial programmes, working to develop common standards and major European champions, assuming greater support from the European Investment Bank and additional funding, including the most innovative, such as the idea of a European loan, proposed by the Estonian Prime Minister, Kajas Kallas.
The French President also said that it was necessary to “build a Europe that can show that it is never the vassal of the United States of America and that it can also speak to all regions of the world (...) not simply through trade agreements, but with genuine strategies for balanced and reciprocal partnership”.
A European economic model that is no longer viable
In economic terms, the EU can no longer carry on as before. “Our model, as it is conceived today, is no longer sustainable, because we legitimately want to have everything, but it no longer fits together. Of course we want to be socially responsible, and we have the most generous social and solidarity model in the world. It’s a strength. As I said, we want the climate, with decarbonised energy, but we are the only geographical area that has adopted the rules to achieve this. The others are not moving at the same pace. We want trade that benefits us, but with many others who are starting to change the rules of the game, who are over-subsidising, from China to the United States of America. We cannot sustainably have the most demanding environmental and social standards, invest less than our competitors, have a more naive trade policy than them and think that we will continue to create jobs. It’s no longer working”.
The President proposed a ‘Prosperity Pact’ and the acceleration of industrial policy. This requires “production targets on European soil”, “training initiatives”, “joint investments” and “consolidating what we have already done”.
“Let’s decide now to make Europe a world leader by 2030 in five of the most emerging and strategic sectors”, said the President, referring to artificial intelligence, quantum computing, space, biotechnologies and new energies, in particular hydrogen.
“We regulate too much, we invest too little, we are too open and we don’t defend our interests enough”, said the President, also calling on the EU to “review” its trade policy.
“Openness, yes, but while defending our interests and – as I was saying, it can’t work if we’re the only ones in the world to respect the rules of trade as they were written 15 years ago”.
The President pointed to the risk of “creating a continent (Europe) that over-constrains producers on its own soil and, through its trade policy, lifts the constraints on the products it imports”.
Without a fundamental overhaul of this trade policy, the EU could “become a consumer market in which there will be no producers who meet our objectives, and which will be forced, by the dependence thus created, to consume products that do not meet our standards”.
Simplifying Europe
We also need to “put an end to a complicated Europe”, said Emmanuel Macron, and to over-regulation. “We have developed useful regulations that set milestones, benchmarks and courses. But we have also sometimes gone into far too much detail, preventing economic players from taking a long-term view and creating competitive disadvantages for our players in relation to their international competitors. We must have the courage to make things easier, starting with a review of the thresholds and obligations weighing on VSEs and SMEs”, added the President.
“We will have to return to the principle of proportionality” and “allow for national flexibility in implementation. This is also why the next few years, the next mandate, will have to go through several waves of simplification of our regulations”.
In terms of values, the President said he wanted to defend a European “humanism” and the defence of a model of society that “sets us apart from the rest”, hoping, for example, that abortion be included in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
While the President has made digital regulation with the DSA and DMA one of his major successes since 2017, he now wants to “recivilise the digital space” and has called for “a European digital age limit of 15 and over”.
“Before the age of 15, there must be parental control over access to this digital space”, he argued, refusing that parents send their 5, 10 or 12-year-old children off into the digital “jungle”.
On immigration, Emmanuel Macron, who welcomed the agreement on the Migration and Asylum Pact, called for “a real European policy and real coordination” and “more coordination with countries of origin and transit”. He said that he wants to act “more firmly” on “return and readmission” and develop conditionalities with third countries.
But the French President stressed that he does not want a Europe that replicates the British plan to outsource asylum seekers to Rwanda, which is not in line with European values.
In a message on X, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz welcomed the speech. “Together, France and Germany want Europe to remain strong. Your speech contains some good ideas on how we can achieve this. Together we are taking Europe forward: politically and economically”.
To see the text of Emmanuel Macron’s speech (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/bz2 (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic with Camille-Cerise Gessant and Isalia Stieffatre)