Macron continues his call to reassert Europe’s position globally, as he adds some swipes at the US trade and foreign policy towards Europe.
“If we want to be taken seriously on the European continent and beyond, we must show the world our unwavering commitment to defend our own interests. It starts, of course, with continuing to extend our support to Ukraine, but it could nicely follow with fanning off unjustified tariffs and politely declining unjustified claims on European territory.
This is what we did and this is what we will [continue to] do.”
He obviously appears to refer to the US threat of tariffs and Trump’s plans for Greenland.
In the Q&A, Macron spells out the task he detailed in his speech, as he says Europeans will need “reorganise our architecture of security in Europe”.
He says “the past architecture of security was totally designed and framed during cold war times,” and doesn’t fit today’s challenges.
He says today’s focus is on Ukraine, but the leaders should look beyond that to plan what the future security arrangement should look like.
He also says a bit more on his thinking about the European nuclear programme, and says he will speak more about this idea “in the next few weeks.”
But he reveals he worked with Germany’s Merz and “with few European leaders” to spell it out and propose safeguards and mechanisms for how it could be governed.
Politico reported recently that Macron was working on a policy speech near Brest, which hosts the base of the French nuclear ballistic missile submarines.
Macron then turns into the issue of regulating social media platforms and fighting disinformation online, painting this as part of a broader effort to ensure integrity of European democratic processes.
He says:
“How is that the craziest and most harmful narratives can go unchecked in our digital space, where they would fall under the law if published in print?”
He praises the EU’s Digital Services Act as the bloc’s attempt to regulate this space, as he says that “to say free speech means no regulation on our social media meaning free speech would mean I will give the mind, … the heart of my teenagers to algorithm of big guys I’m not totally sure I share the values of or Chinese algorithm without any control.”
He says that’s “crazy” and mentions the French push to regulate social media.
“When you have free speech, you have respect, you have rules – and the limit of my freedom is the beginning of your freedom and respect is part of free speech,” he says.
He gets some applause here.
He then lists a number of specific policy asks on digital, including measures against bots, urging for “one single person with one account” approach, and more transparency on how algorithms work and on enforcement against platforms that don’t abide by European rules.
He ends by going back to the main theme of his speech, calling for “audacity” and “strong Europe.”
He says a reformed Europe would be “a good ally and partner for the US,” taking its “fair share of the burden,” and respected as it deserves to be.
“We did a lot, and we will do more, but we will follow this path, believe me,” he says.
Macron continues his call to reassert Europe’s position globally, as he adds some swipes at the US trade and foreign policy towards Europe.
“If we want to be taken seriously on the European continent and beyond, we must show the world our unwavering commitment to defend our own interests. It starts, of course, with continuing to extend our support to Ukraine, but it could nicely follow with fanning off unjustified tariffs and politely declining unjustified claims on European territory.
This is what we did and this is what we will [continue to] do.”
He obviously appears to refer to the US threat of tariffs and Trump’s plans for Greenland.
Macron also talks about the need to work on shared defence and security projects, warning that both national solutions or move to favour national providers would risk “wasting our money and time,” and be “a huge mistake.”
He points to the importance of the SAFE mechanism in helping with Europe’s push to build its defence industries.
“This is European money, and it will be used for European solutions and European programmes,” he says.
He also picks up Merz’s earlier suggestion of a European nuclear arms programme, as he says “it’s very important the discussion we have with the UK, Germany, but open to a lot of other European players to have a new generation of long range missiles that will give Europe a new edge.”
in Munich
Not sure central and eastern European countries – be it Poland or the Baltics – will be particularly thrilled by this idea from Macron, or that it was announced seemingly without getting them on board first.
Macron argues that on Ukraine, Europe has delivered as its stepped up its support for the wartorn country and rallied a coalition of the willing to provide it with security guarantees.
He says that “if you take this past four years, Russia, after invading Ukraine, is a weakened country.”
In a strong passage, he says:
“When I hear some defeatist speech about Ukraine, when I hear some leaders urging Ukraine to accept they are defeated, overpricing Russia in this war, this is a huge strategic mistake, because this is not a reality.
One day, Russians will have to reckon with the enormity of the crime committed in their name, with the futility of the pretexts and the devastating, longer term effects on their country, but until that time comes, we will not lower the guard.”
He says that “we must ensure that the settlement protects Ukraine, preserves European security, disincentivize Russia from attempting again, and also doesn’t give the rest of the world a calamitous example to follow.”
Macron also reasserts Europe’s role in developing the final peace deal.
He says:
“No peace without the Europeans. I want to be very clear: you can negotiate without the Europeans, if you prefer, but it will not bring a peace at the table.”
That’s why, he says, Europe needs to re-establish diplomatic channels with Russia to not rely on others – mostly the US – to run the talks.
But he then goes on further as he talks about the need to draw up “the rules of co-existence” with Russia beyond the Ukraine war.
He also talks about the need to work out how to live with Russia beyond this war, and how to ensure Europe’s security.
He says throughout history, Europe’s security dynamics with Russia has often been defined by “old treaties” developed or managed without the Europeans at the table.
He angrily says that he still remembers the end of Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, or INF, treaty, which he “discovered [about] in the newspapers, as all the allies,” after the US withdrew from it in 2019.
“We have to be the one to negotiate this new architecture of security for the for Europe the day after, because our geography will not change,” he says.
He calls for “a series of consultations on this important issue,” saying some early work has been done with Germany and the UK, but inviting other European allies to play part.
Macron defends Europe in a love letter to its postwar political history as he says it is “a radically original political construction of free, sovereign states.”
He repeats some of his usual lines that the EU must be successful if other countries, for example from the western Balkans region, continue to want to join it.
“Everyone should take their cue from us, instead of criticising us or trying to divide us,” he says.
He then praises Europe’s achievement in a number of fields.
He eventually admits that “obviously, we have to fix a lot of things” (disappointingly, he doesn’t say “fo shure” here), as he urges fellow leaders to “speak about our homework behind closed doors, and let’s deliver.”
He then turns to Ukraine.
Macron is speaking now and he hits a very positive note from the get-go.
He says he “wanted to come today in front of you with a message of hope and determination.”
“Where some see threats, I see our fortitude, where some see doubts, I want to see opportunity, because I believe that Europe is inherently strong and can be made even stronger yet.”
He says that “there has been a tendency these days, in this place and beyond, to overlook Europe and sometimes to criticise it outright.”
He says “Europe has been vilified as an ageing, slow, fragmented construct, sidelined by history as an overregulated, liveless economy that shuns innovation as a society [fall] prey to barbaric migration that would corrupt its precious traditions, and most curiously yet, in some quarters, as a repressive continent where … where speech would not be free, and alternative facts could not claim the same right of place as truth itself.”
He says he wants to offer “completely different view.”
In the meantime, we are getting a word that Denmark’s Frederiksen and Greenland’s Nielsen had a “constructive” meeting with Rubio, as previously announced (11:41).
“Work will continue as agreed in the high-level working group,” Frederiksen said, posting a snap from their meeting on X.
OK, the wait is over: France’s Emmanuel Macorn is going to speak imminently.
in Munich
I keep telling you about all these meetings taking place behind the closed doors, as leaders have a chance to talk to each other far away from the pesky reporters and bloggers listening to everything they say on the main stage.
So let’s take a look at some of these meetings today, including the E3 meeting between Germany, France, and the UK, and a larger European lunch with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio has been busy too meeting with Merz, but also with China’s foreign minister Wang Yi.
Diplomatic editorin Munich
The US acting alone has reached the limits of its power and may already have lost its role as global leader, Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, warned Donald Trump at the opening of the Munich Security Conference.
He also urged the US president to recognise it is still possible to exhaust Russia economically and militarily, to the point where it is willing to come to the negotiating table over Ukraine.
In a speech on Friday designed to set a firm yet conciliatory tone about the future of the transatlantic partnership, Merz argued the old order had ended and in this new age of superpowers even the US was reaching the limits of going it alone.
Merz drew most applause from an audience brimming with hostility toward US unilateralism when he directly criticised the current American administration, saying:
“The culture war of the Maga movement is not ours. Freedom of speech ends here with us when that speech is directed against human dignity and the basic law. We do not believe in tariffs and protectionism, but in free trade. We stand by climate agreements and the World Health Organization.”
As one of the European nations doing the most to boost its own defence spending, Merz clearly felt in a strong enough position to insist the US needed to do more to listen to European concerns about its security and the legitimacy of a sustained European pillar of Nato.
Describing the Munich conference as a seismograph for the state of US-European relations, he said the Ukraine war “had forced Europe to return from a vacation from world history. Together we have entered an era that is once again marked by power and big power politics.”
Merz was speaking as the fourth anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine approaches and one year after Vance used his speech in the same hall to criticise Europeans for not taking enough control of their own defence arrangements and ignoring the demands of its electorates.
As we are waiting for Macron’s speech, let me bring you our diplomatic editor Patrick Wintour’s take on Friedrich Merz’s speech earlier.
UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper has also made similar points, calling for more pressure on the Russian economy just now.
She said she was “hugely sceptical that president Putin is committed to peace.”
“I really hope that these talks can make progress and can get to a peace agreement, but I still think we are going to need to keep intensifying that economic pressure on Russia, including tightening the chokehold on oil and gas, tightening the chokehold on the Russian shadow fleet, keeping up that economic pressure with additional sanctions, and I hope to a maritime services ban as well, so we keep ramping up the pressure on Russia’s economy. The economy has already been heavily hit, but we need to keep that pressure up further.”
The Guardian
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