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’d for the longest time wondered why Europe has been so complacent in letting the US dominate the geopolitical agenda. Could it be by letting the US overspend on military, EU can instead invest in better living standards for themselves & mooch off US military support through NATO if the need ever arises?
Yes, us Europeans cannot just be bothered to bomb the middle east to absolute shit to maintain American prompt global strike projection thinly veiled as an evangelical millenarian psychosis.
As long as it’s not France’s idea of being a power… I have no interest in colonialism.
World powers don’t let shadow fleets sabotage their infrastructure without receiving a declaration of war in return.
Long past time. United we stand, divided we fall.
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.
Wtf has zionism to do with mass surveillance outside of Palestine?
antisemitischer wahn
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.
You guys do have a bit of a habit with those things…
The first thing a Global Power Europe does is invade and colonize North Africa.
Rome 2, this time they have nukes
Rome 2 was the Holy Roman Empire. supposedly.
Europe never stopped being Rome.
Again?
I need to rewatch that show
What show is that?
Found it- Arrested Development.
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.
And nearly all US computer hardware is manufactured in China. What’s your point?
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.
RISC-V ftw!
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.
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.
But were are they going to buy cheap gas?
Explanation: France is one of the biggest importer of Russian gas in EU, right after Putin allies Hungary and Slovakia.
Algeria.
do we have pipes from there yet?
There are already puppies from Algeria to Spain.
The rest of Europe is circling Ukraine like a wake of vultures
Nonsense comment
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
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.
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.
EU leaders are waking up slowly. When they finally wake up and start acting Ukraine will be part of Russia and Greenland part of US.
Can we put him in VdL’s place once he is done in France? He would make a great President of Europe.
How do you determine he’d make a great president? What great things has he achieved as president of France?
He’s perceived well internationally but loathed at home
Is he perceived well? In my region he is perceived as a bla-bla-bla man(including bla-bla-bla with Putin when nobody asked for it).
Can’t really please French people if they want a president that lowers the retirement age to 45 and doubles everyones vacation days each year.
Obvious /s in case that’s not apparent. Unironically, this is how french politics is often portrayed in Swiss media though.
Those are good goals tho
Not disputing that. I’d love to live in such a place.
He’s proven effective at overseeing a stalemate, so he’d be within his element at the EU.
He’s also a good diplomat.
