Benjamin Haddad (Renaissance) is France's for European affairs. He spoke with Le Monde about the consequences for Europe of Donald Trump's return to the White House.
The United States is our ally. We respect the sovereign and democratic choice of the American people. We will work with President Trump, as President Macron did during his first term. In fact, they had a substantial exchange on Ukraine and the Middle East the day after the election.
The real question is at home. It's time for Europeans to wake up to their own strategy, so that every four years we are no longer dependent on the political upheavals on the other side of the Atlantic. This is the best way to take our destiny into our own hands, but also to reinvent the transatlantic relationship. If we want to carry weight, we need to invest collectively in our economic and military sovereignty, and stop subcontracting our security to others. The summit of the European Political Community, this Thursday in Budapest, is an opportunity to exchange views with our European partners.
This means, first of all, continuing to increase our military budgets and supporting an autonomous European defense industry. We have doubled our spending in France during Macron's two terms of office. We already have the tools, but we also need to go further in European cooperation. We need to be bold in finding new resources, as advocated by former Estonian prime minister Kaja Kallas, for example, when she proposed a European loan of €100 billion.
In addition to the military aspect, we need to reduce our dependence on industry,
technology and energy. We've been saying this since the Sorbonne speech. The Draghi report once again sounded the alarm on the continent's industrial stalling due to our falling productivity. Over the past 30 years, the US has created twice as much GDP as Europe. This gap is particularly visible in sectors strategic to our sovereignty such as artificial intelligence, where the US captures 60% of global investment, China 17%, and Europe just 6%. Unifying capital markets, supporting breakthrough innovations, reforming competition rules, mobilizing public and private investment... And let's take a look at what's working in the US, where they innovate and encourage entrepreneurs, before rushing to regulate new technologies.
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