Emmanuel Jean-Michel MacronWill Ocasio-Cortez challenge Biden or Harris in 2024?WHO calls European vaccine campaigns 'unacceptably slow'France extends COVID-19 lockdown nationwide for one monthMORE lately has been touting his vision of what he terms Europe’s “strategic autonomy.” Insisting that he is not advocating a chasm inside the NATO alliance, he has argued that for Europe truly to be “a common and relevant” partner to the United States, it must ramp up its common defense capacity. Indeed, he asserts that it is in America’s interest that its NATO partners do more together on “a European scale.”
In the past, Macron adds, the United States was “the only one in charge.” Burden-sharing was unequal, while the U.S. dominated trade in defense equipment. This arrangement, in his view, ultimately has been “lose-lose.” Europe must be more in charge of its neighborhoods, which includes the Middle East and North Africa. Indeed, he points out that Europe has done little to prevent Turkey’s involvement in Libya, despite its being a NATO ally.