The EU should not be lulled into a false sense of security that tensions with the US over Greenland, technology and trade are over, French President Emmanuel Macron has warned, as he called on the bloc to embark on an “economic revolution” and finally become a true global power.
Macron said he would press his fellow EU leaders at a special summit on competitiveness this week to capitalise on what he called “the Greenland moment”, when Europeans realised they were under threat, so as to move ahead quickly with long-delayed economic reforms and reduce their dependence on the US and China.
“We have the Chinese tsunami on the trade front, and we have minute-by-minute instability on the American side. These two crises amount to a profound shock — a rupture for Europeans,” Macron told the FT and other European media outlets in an interview.
“My point was to say that, when there is some relief after a crisis peaks, you shouldn’t just let your guard down thinking it’s over for good. That isn’t true, because there is permanent instability now.”
Macron said he was “always respectful, predictable” when dealing with US President Donald Trump, “but not weak”.
“When there’s a clear act of aggression, I think what we should do isn’t bow down or try to reach a settlement. I think we’ve tried that strategy for months. It’s not working.”
Europe was now dealing with a Trump administration that was “openly anti-European”, “shows contempt” for the EU and “wishes its dismemberment”, Macron said.
At the same time, he depicted an EU under siege from cheap Chinese goods. He urged his EU counterparts to adopt a “European preference” policy to favour the bloc’s own companies and technologies in strategic sectors such as electric vehicles, renewable energy and chemicals.
Macron once again called on the EU to raise massive new common debt to invest jointly in three innovation “battles” — AI and quantum computing, the energy transition and defence — so that the bloc could become a global economic power.
Macron said the recent crisis over Greenland, when Trump threatened punitive tariffs against European countries opposed to his effort to secure control of the vast Arctic island from Denmark, was “not over”.
He also predicted the EU and the Trump administration would clash later this year over tech regulation — an area where the EU has long irritated the US for applying stricter rules on data privacy, hate speech and digital taxation.
“The US will, in the coming months — that’s certain — attack us over digital regulation,” Macron said, adding the Trump administration could hit the EU with tariffs if the bloc used its landmark Digital Services Act to control US tech companies.
The US could also retaliate against EU countries, including France and Spain, that are planning to ban children from social media, which would lay down a test for the bloc, he said.
“For Europeans to say that our children’s brains are not for sale, that our children’s emotions are not to be monetised by major American or Chinese platforms — that is sovereignty. And that is a powerful Europe.”
EU leaders are due to meet at a Belgian castle on Thursday to inject fresh momentum into flagging efforts to boost competitiveness and deepen integration of the single market.
Macron said he supported attempts to further simplify EU regulations, break down barriers to intra-bloc trade and reduce dependencies on foreign suppliers for critical inputs and technologies.
But the discussions are likely to be dominated by a long-standing French push for the EU to protect key industries through “buy European” policies, with the European Commission due to unveil legislation on the issue this month.
Macron said it was important to protect European content in critical value chains, including chemicals, steel, cars and defence.
“Because today we are facing in particular two major champions that no longer respect World Trade Organization rules,” he added, referring to the US and China. “So if we do not agree to protect . . . to re-establish fair terms of trade, we will simply be swept away.”
Macron’s often lonely campaign for EU strategic autonomy, first laid out in a landmark speech at Sorbonne University in 2017, has been vindicated by recent efforts by the US and China to weaponise economic dependencies against Europe.
But France’s political and fiscal crises and Macron’s domestic weakness have made it harder for Paris to deliver what it has long proposed. There is also resistance in some EU capitals that regard many of Macron’s proposals as contradictory to the bloc’s single market and its free trade principles.
Even as Macron called for more EU defence co-operation, a flagship Franco-German fighter-jet project has been pushed to the brink of collapse by a power struggle between the contractors involved — Dassault Aviation and Airbus.
Despite months of talks, Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have not been able to find a compromise over the leadership of the jet’s development and share of work between the companies, prompting insiders to all but declare the Future Combat Air System dead.
Macron refuted accusations that the FCAS was going to fail, saying that the French and German air forces had again recently agreed on the strategic need for the fighter jet and finalised its specifications.
“The French assessment is that FCAS is a very good project, and I have not heard a single German voice telling me that it is not a good project,” Macron said. “It would be absurd to have a French standard and a German standard for sixth-generation combat aircraft.”
Criticising the defence contractors for trying to “game the system and create dis-synergies”, he promised to speak again to Merz about the FCAS programme. “I believe that things should advance.”