The European Commission was received at the Elysee to discuss the priorities of the EU, while Paris provides the chairmanship of the Council in the French election campaign.
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“Here we are now at the book,” Emmanuel Macron, at a press conference, Friday, January 7th. If it officially started the January 1, the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union (PFEU) was actually launched at the end of the week when Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Commission and its twenty-six commissioners traveled to Paris, Thursday and Friday, to meet the President, the Prime Minister Jean Castex, and several members of his Government and parliamentarians.
Rather than doing long speeches on Europe “Sovereign”, which it has been calling for five years that it is at the Elysee, Emmanuel Macron insisted on his will that the Pfue is a ” useful moment for Europe “. On election campaign funds in France, at a time when Euroscepticism is gaining ground, the President knows that he must show, on this occasion, that community building can improve the life of the French.
Very concretely, Paris intends to complete the negotiations between the twenty-seven and the European Parliament on certain draft directive, such as that on the European minimum wage, which aims to encourage the least socially social countries to Increasing the lowest remuneration, or the two texts that must allow the EU to have a new digital regulation.
Launch the Schengen reform
The Elysée also wants to advance some files, on which the Member States have not yet agreed. With regard to Europe de la Défense, France hopes that the European Heads of State and Government will adopt, at the end of March, the “strategic compass”, a white paper of the defense that analyzes The threats faced by the twenty-seven and which includes the creation of a rapid deployment force of 5,000 men.
It also aims to launch Schengen’s reform, this free movement space has been severely tried in recent years by the migration crisis, terrorist attacks or pandemic. If the twenty-seven agree on the objective – strengthen external borders in order to limit internal border controls – the way to achieve many debates, on the other hand.
Emmanuel Macron also recalled, Friday, his wish to find a compromise with his counterparts on the border adjustment mechanism so that the EU can tax imports of goods produced in third countries to less stringent environmental standards. A subject that also divides, while some countries, like Germany, fear that it is perceived as a declaration of commercial war by the EU partners, at the forefront of which the United States, when others fear that it translates a rise in prices in these inflation times.
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