According to French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, Europe is amid an “unprecedented crisis” regarding the conflict in Ukraine and must choose whether it wants to be a “vassal” of China or the United States. He went on to say that the continent must choose between remaining free and becoming completely dependent on either China or the United States.
“Profoundly affected by the direct and indirect consequences of this war,” the French leader stated in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais.
According to Macron, Europe has yet to decide whether it wishes “to become the vassal of one of the two” or pursue the path of freedom and solidarity. In terms of economics, the “polarity” that exists between the United States and China is what defines the world.
The answer is “an economically, technologically, and militarily sovereign Europe,” even though Europe has so far been unable to provide a complete response to this question. A truly powerful Europe, to put it another way,” the French president emphasized.
Macron is of the opinion that the crisis that Europe is currently going through is also because the continent has not yet completely “digested” the time following the end of the Cold War. The French president stated that when the Cold War ended, the EU rushed to expand rapidly to the east in the hope that “the problems had been solved.” “We have to know how to listen to them,” he said, adding that eastern Europe seeks greater national autonomy within the EU and that the EU now has two groups of nations with divergent perspectives on its future.
However, Macron believes that this crisis is affecting all Western democracies, not just Europe. They are “experiencing a kind of fatigue, a loss of collective references.” He went on to say that the global capitalist system itself is in trouble because it no longer helps people get out of poverty; rather, it only causes “inequalities to skyrocket,” resulting in a “crisis of conscience for democracies.”
The president of France has long advocated for the development of a more tightly knit political community in Europe that would share democratic ideals and work closely together in energy, transportation, and security. Additionally, Macron has insisted that Europe should seek “strategic autonomy” from the US-led military bloc and reduce its reliance on NATO.
