"Our French friends can count on our support from the first to the last day to lay the right foundations within the EU: for a sustainable economic recovery, in the fight against the climate crisis, in digitization and for a more sovereign Europe in the world ".
This is how the head of German diplomacy Annalena Baerbock on Friday assured France of her full support for her rotating presidency of the EU.
From tomorrow, France will chair for six months the Council of the European Union, which represents the interests of the 27 Member States before the Commission and the European Parliament. For Annalena Baerbock, the French presidency constitutes "an important opportunity that we want to seize together to strengthen Europe and make it capable of meeting the challenges of tomorrow", she assured AFP.
This presidency, which Emmanuel Macron wishes to orchestrate around three axes, "revival, power and belonging", coincides with the German presidency of the G7 for one year, and which will be punctuated by a summit of G7 leaders in Bavaria next June.
Germany and France, "as the closest friends at the heart of Europe, bear a particular responsibility for a united European Union, capable of acting and oriented towards the future," she said. added.
Restoring the EU's influence on the international scene
The new social democratic chancellor Olaf Scholz has been at the head of a pro-European government since the beginning of December, which also includes environmentalists and liberals.
These three parties have already stressed their desire to "increase the strategic sovereignty of the European Union", at a time when the EU is being abused on the international scene by rivalries between great powers such as the United States, Russia and China.
Concretely, the future French presidency has put forward three priorities: minimum wages throughout the EU, the regulation of digital giants and a carbon tax at borders.
