French President Emmanuel Macron drew an enthusiastic response from a youthful audience in calling for Europe to defend its values of peace, prosperity and democracy at a ceremony in the German city of Dresden.
Speaking alternately in French and German in front of the city’s Church of Our Lady, Macron called for a strong and sovereign Europe. “We have to retrieve the strength, and the engagement to defend (Europe) everywhere,” he said.
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Macron joined a youth choir and the audience in singing the European anthem, just days before elections to the European Parliament.
Europe was at a crossroads, Macron said during a 40-minute address. “Europe is a history of peace, prosperity and democracy,” he said, but all of this was under threat if Europe did not act.
“Europe is a guarantor of peace. For many of us, this argument long sounded outdated, but war is raging again in Europe,” he said.
Pointing to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Macron said Europe had to formulate its own independent security and defence policy and called for Europeans to act as allies within NATO.
In economic policy as well, Europe had be become more sovereign and more independent with respect to competition from China and the United States.
“Europe needs a growth model for future generations,” the French president said, stressing the need for pushing both economic growth and climate protection to the same extent.
Europe was more than a supermarket and not merely a place of common rules. “It is a pillar of the values and the culture of individual and political freedoms,” he said, calling for a Europe “that in a certain way builds a humanism from the ground up.”
Steinmeier responded: “Europe did not arise from doubts and fear. Europe is the outcome of courage and confidence, and we have to show it now too.”
Looking ahead to the elections, he said that generations had worked at making Europe a continent of freedom and democracy and that it was now up to the current generation to continue the work.
Earlier Macron commemorated victims of the Holocaust, visiting the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe, near the Brandenburg Gate and the Reichstag building in the heart of Berlin’s government district along with Steinmeier,.
Both presidents laid wreaths with flowers in the colours of their national flags. They were accompanied by their wives, Brigitte Macron and Elke Büdenbender.
Around 6 million Jews were systematically killed by Germany’s Nazi regime throughout Europe during the Holocaust.
At the French embassy in Berlin, Macron honoured the persistent work of renowned Nazi hunters Beate and Serge Klarsfeld, who spent decades documenting Nazi crimes and tracking down war criminals.
Just a month ago, Macron caused a stir in Europe by calling for greater EU independence, economic strength and security in a keynote speech and warned that Europe “can die.”
Macron argued that – in the face of military threats, anti-democratic populism and competition between the United States and China – the EU must expand its sovereignty, defend its values and protect its interests and markets.
On Tuesday, Macron is expected to conclude his state visit in the western German university city of Münster, where he is to be awarded the International Peace of Westphalia Prize.
This is to be immediately followed late on Tuesday afternoon by Franco-German government consultations at the Meseberg Palace, a German government guest house to the north of Berlin.
