French President Emmanuel Macron has urged Europe to assert itself on the world stage, saying it is time to start acting like a “power”.
In the face of growing threats from China, Russia and now the US, he told a group of European newspapers that the continent faced a “wake-up call”.
"Are we ready to become a power? This is the question in the field of economy and finance, in defence and security, and in our democratic systems.
“In another era we might have said it is the moment to ‘assume our majority’,” he said ahead of an EU summit in Brussels later this week.
I know how much the French hate Macron (with good reasons), but you can’t really argue against these points. Some things gotta happen. Federilization, another voting system etc. Otherwise EU will be undermined and destroyed by the superpowers and become a lot of small versailstates. We cant find in this world, when bound on hands and feet by a few orbans here and there…
Problem is - if you look at how “World Powers” behave, do you really wanna live in such countries?
Which Europeans would just love to invade neighbors like Russia and USA?
Which Europeans would love to deregulate their countries in order to enrich elites like USA?
Or perhaps which Europeans would love to live under state surveillance while their country buys out foreign infrastructure like China?
This very hard. Europe down in recent years. Usa is dont care Europe. Rising far right population. Well very diffucult job.
World powers don’t let shadow fleets sabotage their infrastructure without receiving a declaration of war in return.
That means cutting ties with Israel and the Zionist oligarchs trying to implement mass surveillance. They don’t seem to understand that basic reality though because they keep trying to force the digital ID through Zionist Larry Ellisons company Oracle onto their populace.
Indeed we should. So long as this doesn’t mean that we move towards being isolationists, imperialists or Nazi’s.
you are already imperialists.
just don’t mess with overt fascism again.
Does Europe have any power? If yes, then Ukraine is the perfect place to demonstrate it. Imagine how powerful 1 million artillery shells per month would look. A hundred tanks and planes per month would look powerful too. Thousand missiles per month might send the powerful message too.
Talking and urging isn’t powerful.
The problem with eu is 27 different nations who have their own agendas and goals and mostly everyone wants to keep it that way. Unlike russia and china and soon usa, EU is a democracy and in a democracy talking and urging is necessary. Its a shame that it’s come to this but im hoping that eu becomes a federation or something like that to maybe make it a bit more efficient and keep up / repel the others
I think the better way is a federation but not for everything. Only for diplomacy, defense and little more. At least as a first step. That way there’s no possibility of having an uberpressident that can do the same Trump is doing.
Essentially, united on foreign policy but not domestic (barring stuff like human rights)? Superficially it seems sensible enough.
The EU is comprised of sovereign entities, but those entities have chosen to give up certain competencies to the Union for various benefits. The EU already handles trade diplomacy and monetary policy through democratic institutions; it isn’t that hard to imagine that could also take on competencies related to defense.
The EU also could share the competency of defense with the various nations. After all, there are other countries which have sub national entities that have their own militaries.
I’m not against talking. I just point out that it is a shame that most activities are limited to talking.
Well you are right and thats why also Macron is right
10000000 Nukes would be even more powerful.
Nukes are more cute than useful.
Ok prove it by stopping Russia from slaughtering your own fucking neighbor
Thats what they have been doing for years now. The EU is the main source of equipment and funding for Ukraine.
That is simply false and America has been providing the majority of the funding until Trump took office only 1 year ago
Yeah no. Not just recently but also overall the EU is the main source of funding for Ukraine. Going into the future this will just become more and more one sided. It was closely matched, but even before Trump took office the EU was leading.
https://www.kielinstitut.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-support-tracker
I do not like Europe representated with a colour different than blue.
Yeah seems really inverted to me
From the same source indicating until Trump America was the lead supporter. Not sure why there’s different data presentation
Thats the same plot but formatted as “stacked”. So in this plot it is also even before 2025. Just admit that you were wrong and fuck off already. It doesnt even matter anyways because my original comment talked about “IS” not “WAS”. And it IS overall the main contributor and by a huge margin.
The rest of Europe is circling Ukraine like a wake of vultures
No. They are not ready. If all your computers and phones “phone home” with “home” being your adversary’s country (that’s how USA deals with Europe in the last year), then you cannot call yourself a world power. Most PCs in Europe use Windows and MacOS. Almost all phones are either Android or iOS. And even if they managed to replace all the software with locally developed Linux, all recent (last 20 years) x86 PCs have either Intel Management Engine or AMD Security Technology. If they chose to make intensive efforts to replace their systems, computers and phones, it would take at least a decade to achieve this. And even then, the US would likely be able to penetrate their systems. It’s so much easier to yield to the Emperor of the Western World for the perennially submissive European serfs.
RISC-V ftw!
I think there is a bit more than digital independence involved. Europe could definitely be a world power if we stopped trying to appease everyone.
This is like telling Lemmy US leftists that they need to start reinforcing their communities and getting social and start grassroots movements to get better representation in their states.
It’s a great message, but the mob is too varied and complacent to actually treat the situation as dire as it really is.
He’s right.
They need to focus on making every European nation a nuclear power. You can’t trust the US when we’re on our second consecutive brain-damaged president in a row.
Yeah, what a fantastic idea: let’s give the Orban’s and the Meloni’s of Europe (stable geniuses one and all) things that go boom and make a nice mushroom cloud.
Fantastic.
We already have two nuclear powers in Europe.
They need to focus on making every European nation a nuclear power.
The power of nuclear weapons comes from being used in a retaliation strike. For that a submarine is needed. Soon space weapons are needed to disable the counter-measures.
Just 10 bombs and 10 bombers is not enough.
would you give hungary the bomb?
Under which conditions? That they have submarines?
I wanted to reply this to @FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world, sorry
It’s less about being a power. The British Empire was “A Power”. The US is “A Power”. Russia has been “A Power” and wants people to think it still is. China is “A Power”.
Unless you use it to the benefit of the people, it’s just posturing.
I really like Macron in his foreign policy mode, it just a shame he pissed the bed by opening a loophole that will be abused if ever an amoral president gets in power.
I lived in Strasbourg during the 2018 Christmas terrorist attack. French gendarmerie kicked ass. Europe needs a standing army. Go build one.
More than a standing army, it needs to act united and decisively. More power for the Euro parliament and leadership that can take charge of crisis situations without having to negotiate with every single member state.
Why is China always perceived as a threat?
They are a threat to Europe’s manufacturing/industrial sectors. In the US, China carries out propaganda/destabilization campaigns; not sure if they do much of that in Europe… Looks like China is involved with AfD (several AfD members have been arrested for espionage), so they are probably trying to destabilize Europe too.
Not all threats are military. China is the economic threat but it also has military might.
EDIT: From the article.
"Are we ready to become a power? This is the question in the field of economy and finance, in defence and security, and in our democratic systems.
China may not be perceived as a military threat, but it is credibly an economic threat. China is returning to a state where Europe has difficulty conducting trade with China as China will only accept natural resources for trade. That can be dangerous for an economy with a large safety net, declining productivity, and little in terms of natural resources.
Because they like imperialism. All the imperialistic superpowers are a threat to humanity.
They’re wealthy, but not white
The real answer.
