French President Emmanuel Macron urged his European Union partners on Tuesday not to hesitate to apply the anti-coercion mechanism when “We are not respected and the rules of the game are not respected” and advocated remaining “calm” and “not passively accepting the law of the strongest.”
“We should not hesitate to use it,” said Macron in his speech at the Davos Forum (Switzerland) when referring to the anti-coercion mechanism, known as the one that the EU was equipped with at the end of 2023 and which has not yet been released.
“Europe has very powerful tools and we must use them when we are not respected and when the rules of the game are not respected,” continued the French president.
These words from Macron come after the American president, Donald Trump, threatened to apply to European countries that carry out military maneuvers in Greenland (Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden, in addition to Norway and the United Kingdom), as well as 200% on French wines and champagnes due to the French president’s refusal to enter the Gaza Peace Board devised by the Republican.
“With Greenland, we have not threatened anyone, we have supported an ally, Denmark”Macron said in his speech in Davos, in which he stated that the tariffs with which Trump has threatened countries that oppose his ambition are “unacceptable, especially if they are used (by Washington) to gain a territorial advantage.”
“We should not passively accept the law of the fittest, as this leads to a politics of the fittest and a neocolonial approach. “Neocolonialism is not the solution,” the French president stressed.
In the same forum, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, warned Trump that it would be “a mistake, especially between long-standing allies”, to apply these tariffs, especially after the pact between Washington and Brussels so that goods produced in the EU are subject to a general tariff of 15% in the US.
Before an audience made up of political and economic leaders, Macron urged them to assume the “responsibility” of confronting these trends and “brutal acts.”
“Europe must defend multilateralism, which serves our interests and those of all those who refuse to submit to brute force,” he added, which is why he defended that the EU be given “more sovereignty and autonomy” in a world that is directed to “the law of the strongest”, while making a plea for international cooperation, in forums such as the United Nations or the G7, which France presides over this semester.
Precisely, at a G7 summit next Thursday in Paris, Macron had invited Trump to address the current tensions over Greenland, but the US president has not yet responded. On the other hand, the Republican did announce today that he will hold a meeting with the “different parties” about Greenland in Davos, which the French head of state will not attend since he told the press that he will leave the Swiss Alpine town today.
“We prefer respect to beasts, science to conspiracy theories and the rule of law to brutality,” said Macron, who praised Europe as “a place where the rule of law and predictability remain the norm.”
