On Monday 6 January, French President Emmanuel Macron said that the European Political Community (EPC) needed to be strengthened, explaining that it was the right format for discussing military and strategic issues.
“We need (...) more ambition within the European Political Community, which must be a place for construction, cooperation and defence”, he explained in his speech to the ambassadors.
According to the French President, the EPC needs to be “solidified” “from a military and strategic point of view, because it is the right place to get the British, the EU Europeans, the Ukrainians, the Moldovans, all the Balkan countries and the Norwegians to work together, that is to say countries that today face the same strategic challenge and that are not necessarily all in the same geopolitical arenas”.
The President also returned to the subject of European defence. “We have done a lot (...), but we are a long way from what we Europeans need to do”, he explained, calling for a massive European investment programme and for European preference.
While the EU Member States are still debating the European Defence Industry Programme (EDIP), and in particular the eligibility criteria, “the question is not whether we need this ceiling or that floor (...), but whether Europeans want, for the next 20 years, to produce what will be necessary for their security or not”, said the President.
See the speech (in French): https://aeur.eu/f/exz (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)