French President Emmanuel Macron gave an interview on his “European economic doctrine” which he intends to propose in the coming weeks and months, in particular “in Antwerp at the summit on European industry and “at the pre-summit with meeting of the heads of state and government of the 27 on European competitiveness, Thursday in Belgium”.
In the interview, given to Le Monde and 6 other European newspapers including Il Sole 24 Ore, Macron launches an appeal “for a common EU debt to finance defense and artificial intelligence”.
“Become power or we will be wiped out”
“Compared to the moment in which the reports written by Mario Draghi and Enrico Letta were published, China has accelerated enormously. Today it has a surplus with the rest of the world of 1,000 billion euros. Europe must decide whether to become a power. If we were to remain a market open to the four winds, we would be wiped out”: continues the head of the Elysée in the interview. According to Macron “Europe is in fact the adjustment factor for the rest of the world. The question is whether we are capable of becoming a power, on an economic, financial, military level and also on a democratic level”.
Three battles: security, defense, technology
“Today, we have three battles to wage, in security and defense, in ecological transition technologies and in artificial intelligence and quantum” says Macron, regarding his new “European economic doctrine”. “In all these sectors – he adds – we invest much less than China and the United States. If the European Union does nothing in the next 3-5 years, it will be swept away by these sectors. And this investment, if we want it to preserve the internal market, rather than fragment it even further, we must not reject it on the nations. It must be a joint investment”. The French president recalls that “Mario Draghi estimated the need for public and private investments in green and digital technologies at 800 billion euros per year. If we add defense and security, we arrive at approximately 1,200 billion euros per year”.
The Franco-German aircraft project
For Macron, the Franco-German fighter plane project, which in recent days according to rumors seems destined to fade away, “is a good project. And I have no German communication on the fact that it is not a good one. project”https://gazzettadelsud.it/articoli/mondo/2026/02/10/macron-debito-comune-ue-per-finanziare-difesa-e-intelligence-artificiale-4a3448ba-f508-4ab6-aeca-a1c0ee5cb106/.”When industrialists try to give up synergies is one thing, but it’s not up to us to defend it – continues Macron – We will talk about it again with Chancellor Friedrich Merz. For my part, I believe that things should proceed in the same way on the battle tank.