French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday, April 25, urged Europe to rise up to the challenges of a changed world, warning that "our Europe, today, is mortal and it can die". "It can die and this depends only on our choices," Macron said in a keynote speech at the Paris Sorbonne university presented as the president's vision for Europe's future. Macron warned that Europe was "not armed against the risks we face" in a world where the "rules of the game have changed".
He urged Europe to emerge from a "strategic minority" that had left it over-dependent on Russia for energy and the United States for security. He described Russia's behavior after its invasion of Ukraine as "uninhibited" and said it was no longer clear where Moscow's "limits" lay. He said the indispensable "sine qua non" for European security was "that Russia does not win the war of aggression in Ukraine".
"We need to build this strategic concept of a credible European defense for ourselves," Macron said, adding Europe could not be "a vassal" of the United States. He said he would ask European partners for proposals in the next months and added that Europe also needed its own capacity in cyberdefense and cybersecurity.
Macron also said preference should be given to European suppliers in the purchase of military equipment and backed the idea of a European loan to finance this effort.