The Minister of Economy, present at the Davos Economic Forum, gave an interview to the French newspaper L'Opinion. European economic sovereignty, Donald Trump, stance. Here are a few excerpts.
Europe has taken a long time to wake up…
I have been sounding the alarm for years - as have a number of French politicians, in fact. Europe has shown bewildering naivety over the last two decades, a herbivore among carnivores. While it only had eyes for its Green Deal and other restrictive regulations, neglecting the cost to businesses and its economic power, the United States rolled out the IRA (Inflation Reduction Act) to attract the investment it was driving away, and the Chinese engaged in massive dumping. We inflicted major damage on our industry and torpedoed investment in the future. The European Commission ignored the warnings and refused for too long to change course.
A few major facts have woken people up: in Belgium, the Antwerp Declaration by the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. Two years ago, agricultural protests across the EU, highlighting the loss of our agriculture's productive power, swayed part of the Commission, which began rolling things back through the Omnibus regulation. The Draghi report was also a fundamental wake-up call. Now Europe is setting up sectoral plans, such as for steel, and starting to defend itself.
You describe yourself as a liberal, yet it seems paradoxical that you are calling for protectionism.
Yes, I am a liberal. But the basis of liberalism rests on fair competition. What we are experiencing, when the United States shields its trade with tariffs and the Chinese subsidise their companies, is not fair competition. Europe must stop being the world's village idiot, the only entity respecting rules that everyone else breaks. We must protect European citizens and markets.
In concrete terms, how do you think Europe should protect itself?
First of all, we must encourage the purchase of European products. That applies to defence. Belgium was heavily criticised for buying American F35s. That's an old decision. From now on, we're concluding agreements within Europe, as we demonstrated with the Camo 3 programme to purchase 1,500 armoured vehicles, in an alliance with France and Luxembourg. That applies to agriculture too: we must produce and consume European products. It applies to technology. We must help European companies like Mistral, as well as leading institutes like Imec in Belgium, which is developing the chips of the future. Until now, we have favoured “small national champions” at the expense of the big European champions.
How should the European Union speak to Donald Trump?
Donald Trump only understands strength, and perhaps we too need to be more direct. However, we must be careful, because we depend on the United States for defence and digital technology, and we cannot do without them. But that does not mean we have to accept all these excesses and noisy surprises.
Read the interview