PARIS -- French President Emmanuel Macron called on Europe to take more responsibility for its defense as partners like the U.S. "turn their back" on the current world order.
"The real question for Europe is if China and the U.S. see Europe as being strategically autonomous; today they don't," Macron told French ambassadors in Paris on Monday during the president's annual foreign-policy speech. "Europe can no longer rely solely on the United States for its security. We must guarantee our own security and sovereignty."
He said discussions on defense cooperation should be extended to all European countries and to Russia, on condition that progress is made with Moscow on ending the fighting in eastern Ukraine between the government and Russia-backed separatists.
"This reinforced solidarity will imply a revision of the European architecture of defense and security: by initiating a renewed dialogue on cybersecurity, chemical weapons, conventional weaponry, territorial conflicts, space security, the protection of the polar zones, in particular with Russia," Macron said.
Macron's vision included a more united front on at least a half-dozen security topics and comes after U.S. President Donald Trump's repeated demands for Europe to become more self-sufficient in its defense. Macron said it was still important to maintain dialogue with the U.S., arguing that the United States' willingness to act on its own didn't begin under Trump, but developed from actions taken during President Barack Obama's administration.
With the exceptions of fellow NATO members France and Britain, the European allies have lived under the nuclear umbrella of the United States since World War II.
That NATO alliance with the U.S. is especially important to countries like Poland and the Baltic states, which had long been under the thumb of Moscow before the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
At a NATO summit last month in Brussels, Trump put more pressure on European countries, asking them to increase their defense spending to at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product -- a NATO goal that many members, including Germany, do not yet meet. Germany is, however, increasing its military spending to 1.5 percent of GDP by 2025.
Macron's speech on Monday aimed to set the road map of French diplomacy for the next year.
Since his election in May 2017, the 40-year-old French leader has called for a more integrated European Union as a whole, with a common European defense budget and security doctrine.
In November, EU countries officially launched a new era in defense cooperation with a program of joint military investment and project development aimed at helping the EU confront its security challenges. Twenty-three of the EU's 28 member nations signed up to the process, known as permanent structured cooperation.
Britain, which is leaving the EU in March 2019, and Denmark, which has a defense opt-out, were among those not taking part.
France, meanwhile, is also pushing for the full implementation of the 2015 Minsk peace agreement that France and Germany backed to settle the conflict in Ukraine, which has killed at least 10,000 people since 2014.
Macron also called for a global review of trade and security cooperation when nations gather in Paris in November to mark the centenary of the end of World War I. France will organize trade discussions as well as a "peace forum" on the sidelines of the ceremonies, Macron said, adding that the "failures of global governance in the 1930s" led to the last world war.
"The real question is not to know if I will be holding Trump's arm at the next summit, but how we will collectively face this moment of great changes that we are living through and that our societies are confronted with," Macron said.
GERMANS WEIGH IN
Macron's speech echoed German Chancellor Angela Merkel's calls 24 hours earlier for a more self-reliant EU.
"We have to take on more responsibility," Merkel said Sunday in the interview with broadcaster ARD. "For Germany, that means placing our trust in Europe. We have the great duty and the big task of making this Europe a strong factor in the world, to ensure prosperity, peace and freedom."
Merkel is due to visit Paris in early September for talks with Macron on Europe's future.
With possible U.S. sanctions looming over European companies that do business with Iran, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas suggested last week that EU countries set up payment systems independent of the U.S.
Maas, whose Social Democrats are the junior partner in Merkel's government, said in Berlin on Monday that the EU needs "a new, balanced partnership with the U.S., to win back room to maneuver for ourselves and react flexibly to the new reality."
Merkel stopped short of backing Maas' payment proposal on Sunday, while saying she and her foreign minister "by and large" agree that Europe increasingly needs to shape its own destiny.
Merkel stopped in Azerbaijan over the weekend to back a gas pipeline meant as a counterweight to Russian supplies. The Southern Gas Corridor is a pipeline project backed by the U.S. and the EU as a way to lessen European dependence on Russian natural gas.
"Azerbaijan is an important factor for the European Union in the diversification of our energy supplies," Merkel said Saturday alongside President Ilham Aliyev in Baku.
A week earlier, Merkel hosted her old adversary, Vladimir Putin, for their first one-on-one talks in Germany in more than five years. The Kremlin said they agreed to push ahead with the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which will increase Russian gas supplies to Germany, despite the possibility of U.S. sanctions after Trump said Germany's energy imports make it "a captive of Russia."
Projecting stability, defending German interests and outlasting her opponents have been key to Merkel's political longevity during her almost 13 years in office. Wolfgang Ischinger, head of the Munich Security Conference and a former German ambassador to the U.S., praised her willingness to meet with Putin after years of tensions over anti-Putin protests in 2011 and 2012, and Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014.
"It symbolizes her mule-like patience," he said in an interview.
This week, Merkel travels to three African countries to promote investment and growth as a way to curb migration to Europe.
EU clashes over limiting migration, stoked most recently by Italy's populist-led government, are shaping up as the next test of Merkel's stamina in the buildup to an EU summit in Austria in September. Macron cited migration as a key issue in what he calls "a European crisis" that also includes nationalism and the failings of EU institutions.
Merkel said she couldn't promise that governments would reach a deal on migration by an end-of-August target.
"I hope we can still make progress in the remaining time, though I know that these talks are anything but easy," she said Saturday.
Information for this article was contributed by Sylvie Corbet of The Associated Press; and by Helene Fouquet, Arne Delfs and Birgit Jennen of Bloomberg News.
A Section on 08/28/2018