The "
incident
" is closed: the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell on Friday, October 15 in Washington showed his willingness to turn the page on the Franco-American crisis which had cooled relations between the United States and Brussels, welcoming a enhanced transatlantic cooperation.
Read alsoIn the bowels of the Suffren, the French navy's new nuclear attack submarine
"
We are not going to be masochistic and insist again and again on our problems, we have to overcome them and look to the future,
" he told reporters the day after his meeting with his American counterpart Antony Blinken.
"
There was an incident, there were some misunderstandings, there was a lack of communication, all of this has already been said,
" he noted.
"
It's good, it's over, let's go ahead.
And let's start working together more closely,
”he added.
"
Blow in the back
"
In September, Josep Borrell expressed the
European Union's
“
solidarity
” with France in the unprecedented crisis that opposed him to the United States. In question, the announcement by American President Joe Biden of a new alliance in the Indo-Pacific region with Australia and the United Kingdom, which came to torpedo a mega-contract of submarines passed between Paris and Canberra. The French authorities denounced a "
blow in the back
" and a "
breach of confidence
".
President Biden and his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron have finally come to an agreement to try to restore confidence.
"
It is clear that the will to cooperate and build a more balanced partnership is, for both camps, the cornerstone of this new partnership,
" said Josep Borrell on Friday.
He welcomed the upcoming launch of an American-European dialogue on security and defense, but also the decision, announced Thursday with Antony Blinken, to hold at the end of the year "
high-level consultations on the Indo -Pacific
”.
This forum will come in addition to a dialogue already underway between the EU and Washington on the posture to adopt vis-à-vis China, the next meeting of which is scheduled for December.