New Europe. Vision of the President of France: “I don’t want to belong to a generation of sleepwalkers”
Today, Mr. Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic, debated Europe’s future with MEPs and European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. The President of the French Republic was the fourth EU leader to address the plenary on the future of Europe, after Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar on 17 January, Croat Prime Minister Andrej Plenković on 6 February , and Portuguese Prime Minister António Costaon 14 March. The next debates will be with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, and Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel in May.
In his first speech to the European parliament, the French president calls for defence of European liberal democracy in face of illiberalism. Emmanuel Macron has likened the political divisions in Europe to a civil war and warned against growing illiberalism on the continent.
Emmanuel Macron: "The European Parliament is, in my eyes, the seat of Europe’s legitimacy, its responsibility and hence its vitality. It is here that part of Europe’s future is being played out (...), here that we must anchor the renaissance of a Europe borne by the very spirit of its peoples. I wish us to move beyond the divides between North and South, East and West, small and large, and national setbacks". "Our responsibility in the coming months is to hold the real European debate, to have real European deadlines that will enable our peoples to choose; we need a sovereignty that is greater than our own, but which complements it: a European sovereignty”, he told MEPs.
The French president called for the defence of a European liberal democracy that offered protection of the rights of its minorities, and attacked those who took their countries out of the EU to pursue fairytale “adventures”.
“I am for the most integrated and closest possible relationship after Brexit, and there’s a well-known solution – it’s called EU membership,” he said.
The vast majority of the speech was, however, about the future without the UK, and the need for the 27 other EU member states to be united in opposition to the emergence of the nationalist authoritarian traits of the past.
“There seems to be a certain European civil war: national selfishness and negativity seems to take precedence over what brings us together. There is a fascination with the illiberal, and that is growing all the time,” he told MEPs.
“In the future, we must struggle to defend our ideals ... This is a democracy that respects individual minority fundamental rights, which used to be called liberal democracy, and I use that term by choice. The deadly tendency which might lead our continent to the abyss, nationalism, giving up of freedom: I reject the idea that European democracy is condemned to impotence.
“I don’t want to belong to a generation of sleepwalkers, I don’t want to belong to a generation that’s forgotten its own past,” he said.
Macron envisaged a strong new partnership between Paris and Berlin to breathe new life into the EU, mooting big new initiatives ranging from far-reaching eurozone reforms to changes in the way the commission president and MEPs are chosen and a crowd-pleasing tax on tech multinationals.
The speech was heartily welcomed by Jean-Claude Juncker, the European commission president.
Most of Parliament’s political group leaders welcomed President Macron’s pro-European élan and France’s role in the recent joint military intervention in Syria, whilst calling for more European Union and the formation of a European army. Other MEPs stressed the challenges facing the European Union today: fighting terrorism, managing the migration crisis, digital technologies and completing EU banking and monetary union.
