France takes EU reins with push for more sovereignty

PARIS – French President Emmanuel Macron pledged Friday to boost Europe's strategical powerfulness and sovereignty, arsenic France formally took the reins of the 27-nation bloc for the adjacent six months with large ambitions.

A leitmotif of the French presidency implicit the adjacent six months volition beryllium the request for greater autonomy for the region. Macron has been championing the thought since helium took powerfulness 5 years agone and volition usage the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU, which sets the governmental docket of the region, to effort to enactment it into practice.

Speaking during a associated property league with the caput of the EU’s enforcement arm, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Macron said the bloc volition finalize this semester the EU's alleged strategical compass, its geopolitical strategy that focuses connected defence capableness building.

“It volition let america to person a communal European presumption astatine NATO and to enactment unneurotic successful a much coordinated way," Macron said, adding that helium wants to make Europe's defence manufacture and summation the bloc's technological autonomy.

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Amid lingering tensions betwixt Russia and Ukraine, Macron added that the EU volition besides physique proposals for “an architecture of European security," which is inactive mostly babelike connected the U.S. and NATO.

Macron and Von der Leyen earlier paid tribute to a brace of starring European figures astatine France’s famed Pantheon, honoring the memories of Simone Veil and Jean Monnet.

Veil was a Holocaust subsister who repeatedly broke barriers for women successful politics. She spearheaded the combat to legalize termination successful France and was the archetypal pistillate president of the European Parliament. Monnet was a founding begetter of the European Union.

Both Macron and von der Leyen wore masks during the sojourn wrong the domed building, amid a question of coronavirus cases that somewhat overshadowed the opening of the French tenure and caused occupation for the French person up of the accomplishment successful Paris of EU officials.

Macron, who is expected to question re-election aboriginal this year, made headlines earlier this week by utilizing rude connection successful notation to the country’s number of unvaccinated people.

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In an interrogation with a newspaper, Macron described his strategy for pressuring vaccine refusers to get coronavirus jabs by utilizing the connection “emmerder” — rooted successful the French connection for “crap” and meaning to rile. His vulgar connection dominated quality broadcasts and provoked aggravated reactions from his governmental rivals.

To determination things guardant connected the continental signifier connected the immense array of touchy topics helium wants to tackle, Macron volition request to follow a much consensual code with his EU counterparts.

With the coronavirus pandemic flaring successful Europe and amid diplomatic tensions astatine the outer borders of the EU, von der Leyen said she was pleased “that a state with the governmental value and acquisition of France assumes the presidency of the Council astatine specified a delicate moment."

“Because the dependable of France speaks large and clear, and France has Europe astatine heart," she said.

Among different main themes France wants to beforehand are the instauration of an EU minimum wage, a c taxation connected imported products and the betterment of the EU's fiscal rules. France besides wants to accelerate discussions betwixt subordinate states to find a statement connected the stalled overhaul of the bloc's asylum system.

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