Emmanuel Macron urged Europe to develop more strategic autonomy as a way to avoid the risk of turning EU countries into “vassals” in the event of a global crisis such as a U.S.-China confrontation.
“Strategic autonomy must be the battle of Europe,” the French president told the business daily Les Echos during last week’s visit to China. “We don’t want to depend on others for critical topics,” Macron said in the interview, published on Sunday, citing issues such as energy, defense, social media and artificial intelligence. Similar comments were published by Politico.
Macron warned against what he called the “extraterritoriality” of the U.S. dollar, which can force European companies to forgo business with third countries or risk sanctions violations.
