Photo: Collected
French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday (25 April) urged Europe to rise up to the challenges of a changed world, warning that "our Europe, today, is mortal and it can die".
"It can die and this depends only on our choices," Macron said in a keynote speech, warning that Europe was "not armed against the risks we face" in a world where the "rules of the game have changed".
"Over the next decade... the risk is immense of (Europe) being weakened or even relegated," he said at the speech at the Sorbonne university in Paris, billed as the president's vision for Europe's future.
He urged Europe to emerge from a "strategic minority" that had left it over-dependent on Russia for energy and the United States for security.
He described Russia's behaviour after its invasion of Ukraine as "uninhibited" and said it was no longer clear where Moscow's "limits" lay.
He said the indispensable "sine qua non" for European security was "that Russia does not win the war of aggression in Ukraine".
"We need to build this strategic concept of a credible European defence for ourselves," Macron said, adding Europe could not be "a vassal" of the United States.
He said he would ask European partners for proposals in the next months and added that Europe also needed its own capacity in cyber defence and cybersecurity.
Macron said preference should be given to European suppliers in the purchase of military equipment and backed the idea of a European loan to finance this effort.
Messenger/Mumu
