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 EU to launch an “economic revolution” and eventually become a true global power.
Macron said he would press his fellow EU leaders at a special summit on competitiveness this week to take advantage of the “Greenland moment”, when Europeans realized they were in danger, to move faster with long-delayed economic reforms and reduce their dependence on the US and China.
“On the trade front we have the Chinese tsunami, and we have minute-by-minute instability on the US side. These two crises are a deep blow – a rupture for the Europeans,” Macron told the FT and other European media outlets in an interview.
“My point was that, when there is some relief after the crisis has peaked, you should not protect yourself by thinking that it is over for good. That is not true, because now there is permanent instability.”
Macron said he was “always respectful, predictable” when dealing with US President Donald Trump, “but not weak”.
“When there is an obvious act of aggression, I think what we should do is not cave in or try to reach an agreement. I think we’ve tried that strategy for months. It’s not working.”
Europe is now dealing with a Trump administration that is “openly anti-European”, Macron said, “shows contempt” for the EU and “wishes for its disintegration”.
He also portrayed the European Union as surrounded by cheap Chinese goods. He urged his EU counterparts to adopt a “European preference” policy to favor 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 jointly invest in three innovation “battles” – AI and quantum computing, the energy transition and defense – so that the bloc can become a global economic power.
Macron said the recent crisis over Greenland, when Trump threatened punitive tariffs against European countries opposing his attempt to wrest control of the giant Arctic island from Denmark, was “not over”.
He also predicted that the EU and the Trump administration will clash over tech regulation later this year – an area where the EU has long troubled the US for imposing strict rules on data privacy, hate speech and digital taxation.
“In the coming months the United States will attack us over digital regulation,” Macron said.
He said the US could also retaliate against EU countries, including France and Spain, which are planning to ban children from social media, which would be a test for the bloc.
“For Europeans to say that our children’s brains are not for sale, that our children’s emotions should not be monetized 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 bring new momentum to efforts to boost competitiveness and deepen single market integration.
Macron said he supports efforts to further simplify EU rules, remove barriers to intra-bloc trade and reduce reliance on foreign suppliers for critical inputs and technologies.
But the discussion is likely to be dominated by long-standing French pressure for the EU to protect key industries through “buy European” policies, with the European Commission set to unveil legislation on the issue this month.
Macron said it was important to protect European content in key value chains, including chemicals, steel, cars and defence.
“Because today we are facing two major champions in particular who no longer respect WTO rules,” he said, referring to the US and China. “So if we do not agree to protect … to re-establish fair terms of trade, we will be easily 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 weaponize economic interdependence against Europe.
But France’s political and fiscal crisis and Macron’s domestic weakness have made it difficult for Paris to do what it has long proposed. There is also opposition in some EU capitals that see many of Macron’s proposals as contradictory to the bloc’s single market and its free trade principles.
Even as Macron has called for greater EU defense cooperation, a major Franco-German fighter-jet project has been pushed to the brink of collapse due to a power struggle between the contractors involved – Dassault Aviation and Airbus.
Despite months of talks, Macron and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz have been unable to reach an agreement on leadership of the jet’s development and sharing of work between the companies, leading insiders to declare the Future Combat Air System dead.
Macron denied allegations that FCAS was going to fail, saying that the French and German air forces had recently re-agreed on the strategic need for the fighter jet and had finalized its specifications.
“The French assessment is that FCAS is a very good project, and I have not heard a single German voice saying that it is not a good project,” Macron said. “It would be absurd to have French standards and German standards for the sixth generation fighter.”
Criticizing defense contractors for trying to “game the system and create non-cooperation”, he promised to talk to Merz again about the FCAS program. “I believe things should move forward.”
