2024-01-30 15:12:20
During his official visit to Sweden, the French president estimated that it would be “easy to blame everything on Europe” to explain the difficulties of French farmers.
On a state visit to Sweden, Emmanuel Macron defended the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) on Tuesday January 30 in the face of the difficulties of French farmers, but asked for “rules” to face non-European competition. The anger of French farmers and other European countries was evident on the first day of the French president’s state visit to Sweden, largely devoted to the future of European defense and support for Ukraine.
“It would be easy to blame everything on Europe”said Emmanuel Macron during a press conference with the Swedish Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, noting that “without the Common Agricultural Policy, our farmers would have no income and many of them would not be able to live”. The CAP organizes competition and regulates agricultural aid at European level.
He justified the refusal to conclude a trade agreement between the European Union and the Latin American countries of Mercosur, desired by countries like Germany, by the existence of “rules that are not consistent with ours”. The French president also requested “clear measures” faced with imports of chickens and cereals from Ukraine. He is due to meet Thursday with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on the sidelines of a European summit.
Emmanuel Macron, who spoke shortly before the general policy speech of the new Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, also hoped that distributors “do not get all the added value” in negotiations with farmers. The European purchasing centers set up by certain distributors to obtain even lower prices constitute a “circumvention of French law”which he wants to discuss at European level, he added.
LIVE – General policy speech: young delinquents will have “work of educational interest”, promises Attal
European autonomy
The French President and Ulf Kristersson concluded a “renewed strategic partnership”, defense being at the heart of this cooperation, at a time when Sweden is close to joining NATO. In this context, Emmanuel Macron called on Europeans to support Ukraine “in the time” and to compensate for any possible decline in American aid, a few months before the very indecisive presidential election in the United States.
“We must organize ourselves in such a way that if the United States were to make the sovereign choice to stop this aid or reduce it, it should not have an impact on the ground”, he said during the press conference. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Hungary is the latest EU country to obstruct the payment of 50 billion euros in European aid to Ukraine, which will be the focus of the European summit on Thursday in Brussels.
Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, almost two years ago, shook up the situation in Sweden: long neutral on a military level, Stockholm decided to join the Atlantic Alliance. Hungary also remains the last obstacle to this accession, which Ulf Kristersson plans to speak about on Thursday on the sidelines of the European Council, with his Hungarian counterpart
France and Sweden share “a desire precisely to bring together, to produce together, to help Ukraine together to have a Europe that protects itself better”, he added. Emmanuel Macron, who will visit Ukraine in February, will address defense issues during a speech Tuesday afternoon to young Swedish officers from the Karlberg Military Academy.
Sweden “is a country which has the same vision of sovereignty as France” with “the desire to develop capabilities over a very broad spectrum, whether operational or industrial capabilities”said an advisor to the French president, emphasizing a common approach to the need to enter into “war economy”.
A sign of the evolution of mentalities, the Swedish authorities caused an electric shock in January by declaring, through the voice of the commander in chief of the Swedish army Micael Bydén, that the Swedes “had to mentally prepare for war”.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Sweden announced that it wanted to reach the milestone of 2% of GDP devoted to defense spending “as soon as possible”. The country can count on a solid defense industry and France and Sweden have in common the fact that they have independently developed a fighter plane, the Rafale on the French side, the Gripen on the Swedish side.
France and Sweden to sign declaration of intent on air defense and aerial surveillance systems, while Saab and MBDA are expected to conclude “in the coming days a contract on the development of the Akeron anti-tank missile”according to Paris.
#Farmers #Mercosur #war #Ukraine.. #Emmanuel #Macrons #statements #state #visit #Sweden