Emmanuel Macron called, on Wednesday January 17, for Europe to withstand the shock of the “acceleration” of the world, pleading for new common European loans in order to invest in “major priorities for the future”. For the French president, 2024, the year of European elections – they will take place in June – “will also be a year at the heart of all our challenges because we can clearly see the world being recomposed before our eyes”.
“There is a tremendous acceleration of innovations, there is an acceleration of all agendas. And Europe is facing very great difficulties in this reorganization of the world,” he told an audience of decision-makers during the meeting organized as every year by the World Economic Forum in the luxurious Swiss ski resort.
The French president estimated that it was necessary to “invest much more” in the face of the massive efforts of the United States and China in artificial intelligence and the greening of industry. To do this, he encouraged the European Union to reissue common debt, as during the Covid-19 pandemic. “We need more European public investment”, “perhaps by daring again with Eurobonds”, “on major priorities for the future”, he declared.
Avoid “giving in to the risk of division”
“We also need to deepen the Capital Markets Union. We absolutely must have a financial Europe that is much more integrated,” he added, outlining initial proposals that could set the tone for his campaign for the European vote.
On the diplomatic level, Emmanuel Macron also judged that 2024 would be “a key year” in European support for Ukraine, a country to which he is due to visit in February.
The EU must therefore avoid “giving in to the risk of division and try to have an effective agenda which will ensure the fact that Russia cannot and must not win in Ukraine”, he insisted, urging member states to “give visibility” to Kiev and “recommit” their “efforts whatever happens in the United States” during the November presidential election, which could mark the return of Donald Trump to the White House.
“Useful diplomatic time”
More broadly, the French president came to praise the French meetings of 2024, including the 80th anniversary of the Landings, in Normandy, in June, and the Olympic Games in Paris, two events which he wants to make a “useful diplomatic time”. he said without further details. Then the Francophonie Summit, in October, and the reopening in December of Notre-Dame de Paris cathedral, five years after the fire which ravaged it.
He also highlighted his economic record in France, ensuring that he had carried out all the reforms promised during his previous visit to Davos, in 2018, shortly after his first election. And he declined an “Act II” of these economic and labor market reforms, mentioned the day before during a national press conference at the Elysée.
Accompanied by four regional presidents and around twenty bosses of start-ups or SMEs, the Head of State confirmed wanting to “tighten the rules of unemployment insurance” in France and simplify the standards to free up unemployment insurance. ‘economy.
Emmanuel Macron finally announced his intention to “initiate a reform of the first university cycle to better allocate [the] training to the needs of the nation”. The objective is to keep its flagship promise in favor of “full employment”, while the unemployment rate seems to be stagnating around 7.4% after falling in recent years.
