French President Emmanuel Macron has urged Europe to ramp up investment in strategic industries, warning that the continent risks being “swept aside” by competition from the United States and China.
His remarks were made in an interview published on Tuesday, ahead of a meeting of EU heads of state scheduled for 12 February.
"Today, our Europe faces an immense challenge in a world in turmoil," the French leader said, urging the bloc to respond to what he called a "wake-up call".
US 'threats and intimidation'
He warned against complacency, stressing that US "threats" and "intimidation" were not over.
His comments were part of an interview with several European publications including France's Le Monde, English language publications The Economist and The Financial Times, and Germany's Suddeutsche Zeitung.
Ahead of an EU meeting on competitiveness on Thursday, he advocated for "simplifying" and "deepening the EU's single market", and for "diversifying" trade partnerships.
"We are currently in a phase I would call a 'Greenland moment'," Macron said.
US President Donald Trump last month threatened to annex the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland and impose tariffs on any European countries that opposed him, but then performed a U-turn.
EU seeks stability after Trump steps back on Greenland and tariffs
"There are threats and intimidation. And then, suddenly, Washington backs down. And we think it's over. But don't believe it for a second. Every day, there are threats against pharmaceuticals, digital technology..." he said.
"When there is blatant aggression...we must not bow down or try to reach a settlement," he said.
"We tried this strategy for months, and it's not working. But above all, it strategically leads Europe to increase its dependence."
He hailed the establishment of new trade partnerships such as the one recently signed between the EU deal and India, which he said provided the EU with a growth driver.
Power in numbers
But he admitted that Mercosur [treaty] is "a bad agreement", referring to the trade agreement with several Latin American countries.
"It is an old agreement that was poorly negotiated. In any case, Mercosur will have neither the dramatic impact on our agriculture that some fear, nor the positive impact on our growth that others imagine."
He spoke of Europe's sheer size in terms of population – 450 million inhabitants – and how this could act in the bloc's favour.
"We came together to stop waging war, we came together to create a market, but we always refused to think about power together. For one simple reason: because until 1945, power meant civil war between us," he said.
EU and India seal 'mother of all trade deals' as leaders meet in New Delhi
Macron listed three major arenas in which he feels the EU needs to invest more heavily: security and defence, ecological transition technologies and artificial intelligence and quantum computing.
"In all these areas, we are investing much less than China and the United States. If the EU does nothing in the next three to five years, it will be swept out of these sectors," he outlined.
"If we want this investment to preserve the internal market and not fragment it further, we must not leave it to individual nations. It must be a joint investment," he said, adding that the European Union's public and private investment needed around €1.2 trillion per year.
He renewed his call for common European debt, an idea France has championed for years, but other countries have rejected.
"Now is the time to launch a common borrowing capacity for these future expenditures, future-oriented Eurobonds," he said.
"The EU is under-indebted compared to the United States and China. At a time when there is a race to invest in technology, it is a serious mistake not to use this borrowing capacity."
