Macron unveils EU agenda earlier than French presidential race

French President Macron vowed to work to make Europe “more powerful” on the earth as France is about to take up the rotating presidency of the European Union, a tenure that overlaps with the nation’s presidential election and will put him in a tough place if he campaigns for a second time period.
Macron is predicted to run in April’s two-round election, and France’s flip within the European Council’s rotating six-month presidency begins January 1.
“Many would like to rely only on one nation. Nations are our strength, our pride, but European unity is their indispensable complement,” the proudly pro-EU president mentioned.
“We want to get … a powerful Europe in the world, fully sovereign, free to make its choices and master of its own destiny,” he mentioned throughout a information convention in Paris.
Macron mentioned France’s EU presidency would work to advertise “a European model of growth” that may permit the 27-nation bloc to generate wealth and jobs whereas on the similar time preserving excessive social and climate-related requirements.
He introduced a sequence of summits for the primary half of subsequent yr about EU protection insurance policies and the bloc’s relationship with Africa and the Eastern Balkans.
Europe faces main challenges, he mentioned, from local weather change to migration points involving “manipulation from some states” and “attempts at destabilization, tensions including in our closer neighborhood.” The European Union in latest months accused Belarus of encouraging asylum-seekers to cross from the nation into neighboring EU members Poland, Lithuania and Latvia.
Macron mentioned he would have talks with different EU leaders to make the bloc extra “capable of controlling its borders.”
Macron, who was elected in 2017, has but to formally declare whether or not he’ll search a second time period.
He famous that the schedule for France’s presidency of the EU is notably the consequence of Brexit and insisted he’ll totally be dedicated to the European job at the least till the French election.
“Maybe France’s politics will change. For sure, France will remain France,” Macron mentioned.
“I say it again: the term (in office) I was given by the French, I will serve it until the last quarter of hour,” he mentioned.
France’s presidency of the EU may present a platform for Macron’s marketing campaign but additionally complicate it if the race is targeted totally on home points such because the French economic system, safety and immigration.
Macron chief would have the ability to use the presidency to affect the EU-wide choices, but the bloc’s advanced and consensual decision-making course of may play in opposition to him and produce few concrete actions earlier than April’s election.
Macron promotes a imaginative and prescient for the EU’s “strategic autonomy” that may permit the bloc to higher climate competitors from China and put it on a extra equal footing with the United States.
Notably, he’s pushing for “a stronger and more capable European defense” that contributes to trans-Atlantic and international safety and is complementary to NATO.
France’s motto for the EU presidency is ‘Recovery, power, belonging’ – the final phrase meant to convey the concept of enhancing Europeans’ sense of shared belonging to the bloc.
The French chief’s information convention concerning the EU presidency was solely the time Macron appeared earlier than reporters on the Elysee presidential palace to reply a broad vary of questions. His basic information convention befell in April 2019 following the antigovernment “yellow vest” protests in opposition to social and financial injustice.
Polls on the voting intentions recommend for months Macron is the frontrunner within the race. A precedence for him will likely be to suck help away from conservative and far-right candidates, who’re polling extra strongly than contenders on the left and seem in a greater place to succeed in the run-off.
Last week, France’s foremost conservative get together, The Republicans, selected the pinnacle of the Paris area, Valérie Pécresse, to be its candidate within the presidential race.
Known as a satisfied pro-European, Pécresse in latest months hardened her positions on immigration and safety. “Macron has only one obsession: to please (people). Me, it’s to do things,” she mentioned, vowing to “break” with the president’s centrist insurance policies.
Two far-right contenders, Marine Le Pen, the pinnacle of the National Rally who confronted Macron within the 2017 runoff, and former TV pundit Eric Zemmour, are campaigning on anti-Islam, anti-migrant themes.
In a transparent response to the far-right, nearly adopting the tone of a presidential candidate, Macron concluded the information convention by saying: “when the bad winds are blowing, it’s legitimate that democratic choices are being made.”
French establishments should not make any concession “to racism nor antisemitism” he mentioned, praising “discussions and controversies” and denouncing “hatred.”
On the left, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo is the presidential candidate for the Socialist get together and the Greens selected European lawmaker Yannick Jadot, a former Greenpeace activist.
The far-left chief of the Rebel France get together, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who’s looking for the presidency for the third time, referred to as on Macron to “come into the arena to debate.”
Macron “is not above democracy,” he mentioned.