Seven years after a first speech at the Sorbonne on Europe, Emmanuel Macron did it again this Thursday morning. A speech in the form of a progress update, but also “announcements” – or in any case wishes – for the leadership of the European Union during the 2024-2029 mandate.
After a quick assessment of his 2017 speech, and despite “historic steps” taken, the President of the Republic painted a dramatic picture of the “challenges of the time” to which the European Union must respond. “Our Europe is mortal,” assures Emmanuel Macron. This shows that the challenges that arise are significant: the risk is “relegation”. “The rules have changed,” believes the president. And to adapt to it, Europe must go through “power”, “prosperity” and “humanism”.
” The power “
For the tenant of the Elysée, what is needed is “simple, it is a Europe which is respected and ensures its security”. Simple, it must be said quickly, of course. The “change of scale” in European defense requires – a “sine qua non” condition – the fact that Russia “does not win” the war in Ukraine. More generally, it is a question of “giving content” to this common security framework, to the point of creating “strategic intimacy” with our partners. A European anti-missile shield? Perhaps, said Macron, who also sees French nuclear deterrence as an element of this framework.
This will require a stronger European defense industry, including a European loan, which other countries have already called for. And to produce “faster, in Europeans” it will be necessary to go through “standardization” of models. Besides, the Union must have “the diplomacy that goes with it”, more “coherent”. Emmanuel Macron would like a continent that becomes “a balancing power that speaks to the rest of the world and refuses polarization”
Finally, he calls for “border control”, with better coordination to “act more firmly in matters of return” of “irregular migrants” to their country of origin.
” Prosperity “
If we want to produce “more wealth, guarantee the purchasing power of Europeans, decarbonize our economies, ensure our sovereignty and keep our economy open to remain a great commercial power”, then we need “a new model of growth and of production,” believes the head of state. Emmanuel Macron went far by explaining that Europe was “too open”: “Openness yes, but by defending our interests. »
Thus, he wants “an evolution of our competition policy, assuming massive support for our companies in strategic sectors”, as the Americans and Chinese are doing. This involves in particular a “European preference” on defense and space.
In the same movement, the president wants a “made in Europe” strategy with production objectives on European soil. He also wants to put an end to “complicated Europe” and further simplify the rules of the common market, sometimes “in too much detail”.
Emmanuel Macron made a very long list of massive investments to be made “in Europeans”, in industry, health, new technologies, energy, agriculture… But how to finance these “650 to 1,000 billion euros more per year”? First by changing the objectives of the ECB’s monetary policy, by integrating growth and decarbonization and no longer just inflation. And then we must “double Europe’s financial capacities”, he says, with its own resources, and therefore European taxes, but which do not weigh on populations: carbon tax at borders, on financial transactions, etc.
“Humanism”
As in 2017, Emmanuel Macron wants to defend a European cultural singularity in the broad sense: “We are not like the others, we must never forget that. » For him, being European is not only about living in a territory but having “a certain philosophy of man”, having a “unique relationship to justice and freedom”. Thus, the president does not want European imaginations to only be flooded with extra-European, and primarily American, cultural productions. It is therefore a question of increasing the deadlines: making it easier to travel by train in Europe; after the university alliances in his 2017 speech, alliances of museums and libraries. A culture pass at European level, too.
“Liberal democracy is not a given,” notes Emmanuel Macron, including within the EU. And in order not to compromise on these values, he wants European aid to be more conditional on respect for the values of liberal democracy: “Europe is not a window in which we agree to choose the principles. » On the question of democracy, which he himself recognizes as the main failure of the 2017 speech, the head of state puts forward the idea of transnational lists in European elections, continental referendums and major pan-European debates.
For the democratic debate, it is a question of “recivilizing digital spaces”, “a civilizational and democratic fight” by better moderating social networks, and above all by protecting the youngest with a digital majority at 15 that the president wishes to extend to all of Europe.
Finally, in terms of justice, Emmanuel Macron wishes to include the right to abortion in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.