Weber (PPE) appelle au leadership européen alors que les États-Unis se retirent de leur rôle mondial
Le président du principal parti de centre-droit de l'UE a déclaré à Euronews qu'il était temps pour l'Europe d'agir.
LIRE L’ARTICLE : http://fr.euronews.com/2025/05/02/weber-ppe-appelle-au-leadership-europeen-alors-que-les-etats-unis-se-retirent-de-leur-role
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Le président du principal parti de centre-droit de l'UE a déclaré à Euronews qu'il était temps pour l'Europe d'agir.
LIRE L’ARTICLE : http://fr.euronews.com/2025/05/02/weber-ppe-appelle-au-leadership-europeen-alors-que-les-etats-unis-se-retirent-de-leur-role
Abonnez-vous à notre chaine. Euronews est disponible sur Dailymotion en 12 langues
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00:00Le président de l'État est un grand politique, l'État de l'État, la République du Parti du Parti du Parti du Parti du Parti du Parti du Parti du Parti du Parti du Parti du Parti du Parti.
00:30Génétique et le piesagé dans ce congress off ہے.
00:33Quel est le nouly message des votants, car toutится parce qu'on traverse dans le monde aujourd'hui.
00:39Nous trouvons dans le monde très hypothetical décé może être dans une guerre…
00:42nineodi-en-nous-s Quel est le nouveau modèle ?
00:45Notre message est d'écouter de la personne, et puis entendre qu'on s'ab Isaiah copine dans une sorte de problème dans la taux orbanales.
00:50Nous m'avons également dit que les gens sont confusés, les gens dorment mal***** dans leur développement.
00:57People now experience what America is doing, what Trump is delivering every day on uncertainties.
01:03And in this moment of time, our concept of being concrete on our promises is fundamental.
01:09Let me remind you that our key promises in the last campaign were the question of competitiveness and economic strength.
01:15It was a measure of security, especially with defense, with the question of protecting ourselves against the brutal dictatorship of Putin, and democracy.
01:26So about rule of law, about the inner structure of the European Union, where I'm very proud that parties like the TISA party, the main opposition party, the Viktor Orban, joined the EPP group as part of our family.
01:38And also Donald Tusk showed in Poland that we are the party of rule of law, of democracy in Europe.
01:43These are the three pillars for our mandate, and there, European People's Party is now working hard to deliver on these issues.
01:49So you mentioned rule of law and pro-European-ness, but do you think this message will resonate today with the voters?
01:57Well, the precondition for everything is delivering on content, living conditions for our people, you know, have economic growth, jobs for especially the young generation.
02:06Not accepting first and second class Europeans in Europe, you know.
02:10Some parts of Europe don't feel equally treated than other parts of Europe, and that has to stop.
02:16So these kind of things, there we have to deliver finally.
02:19Also now the main challenge of building up a European pillar of defense.
02:24There we have to deliver now and work on this.
02:26But probably you're right, because the main competitor for me for the next upcoming years is not anymore the center-left, where I would hope that socialists are becoming again the workers' party of Europe, you know, close to the car manufacturers and so on, which are not yet the case in this moment of time.
02:46So the main competitor for us for the next years are the populists and the extremists.
02:52We are facing an authoritarian wave all over the world, and it is also coming and arriving in Europe.
02:59And that's why the biggest job for us as the biggest party of Europe, as the center-right party, as EPP, is to protect our way of life, to protect our democracy in the European Union.
03:10And there Valencia is the starting point for creating such a vision on the long run.
03:14That's very interesting that you say that you have to fight populist instead of, let's say, the middle ground of the politics.
03:21But how you will get out the message?
03:24Because people consider EPP people like bureaucrats in Brussels, isn't it?
03:30So you have to be more loud, maybe.
03:32What we have to do is to have again a convincing narrative, a convincing story, a convincing understanding about where is the future of our society.
03:42For example, on the question of the defence union, we speak currently about common procurement.
03:48But Adenauer, de Gasperi and Schumann, they spoke about lasting peace in Europe, forgiveness after the Second World War.
03:55So that was the level of political discussions.
03:57Or when we speak about economy, it's not so much only about start-ups and about the number of jobs we create.
04:02That's important, but, you know, social market economy was the answer towards communism and social market economy won against communism.
04:12And today our market must win against authoritarian concept of China.
04:18Is China providing more economic growth or is our European model providing more social justice and economic growth?
04:25So this is the level of discussion we have in front of us, and I want to see EPP discussing this with a perspective, with a future orientation.
04:33And in a world where America is not anymore the stable anchor and gives not this kind of orientation, Europe is even more asked to do so.
04:42And again, the biggest party of Europe must provide Europe exactly with this thinking and this content.
04:47Let me come back for one question on the issue with the populists and, as you said, autocrats.
04:53How do you want to fight them when the EPP is voting with them together many times in the European Parliament when it comes to Green Deal or other issues?
05:03Well, I as party leader defined a clear red line to the extremists.
05:07We will never work together with those who are not respecting my three pros.
05:12So pro-Ukraine, pro-rule of law and pro-Europe.
05:15But there are fundamental things for us.
05:17So you can name them.
05:19It's Le Pen in France.
05:20It's AFD in Germany.
05:22There will be never a structured cooperation with them for us as EPP.
05:26So we are ready to include the serious conservative parties in Europe.
05:30For example, Giorgio Meloni showed in Italy, together with Antone Tajani, that they are credible, that they are center-based.
05:36Petr Fiala in Czech Republic is fighting against Babiš and is a conservative politician.
05:40And he should be part of a team, of a broader team on a European level.
05:43So that's why I work together with the serious ones.
05:46But with those who are really taking Europe into question, like PIDEL and AFD or Le Pen, there is no cooperation possible at all.
05:53But do you think that the EPP right now is more right-wing than it was, let's say, three years ago, when it comes to migration, when it comes to the green policies?
06:03I wouldn't say so, because, you know, we had already, three years ago, tough discussions about legislation like nature restoration law.
06:11It was one of the symbolic debates we had in the last mandate, where the left-leaning Franz Timmermans thinking was not anymore reflecting what the people asked us to do.
06:21And also on, for example, building up fences, if needed, to stop instrumentalization of migration.
06:28We did it in Finland, we did it in Poland, we did it in Greece.
06:31So EPP was always coherent and consistent on this.
06:34I would say today more and more voters follow our approach.
06:37And that's why EPP won elections in the last years.
06:41And we do this serious, we do this European way, we do it also based on rule of law, like the Geneva Convention, like respecting the asylum right in Europe.
06:50We are doing it not like the populist and extremist way.
06:53So that's our middle ground, in a way, the serious center-right party who is providing answers in today's world.
06:59Isn't the EPP too powerful right now with 12 heads of state at the European Council and leadership of the European Commission,
07:08and you in one person being the leader of the big EPP family and also of the EPP group.
07:15I mean, isn't it too much of responsibility, of power in the European Union?
07:20The mandate you described and the outcome you described is based on elections.
07:25You know, 180 million people participated in the last European elections and they gave us a mandate.
07:31They voted here in Spain, in Hungary, in Germany, in Finland, they voted.
07:35And they decided to stop the period of a left-liberal-driven agenda and now coming back to a center-right-driven agenda.
07:44That's normal in democracy.
07:47But what is a bigger problem is that when people vote for another European parliament, for a center-right European parliament, things must change.
07:55You know, we cannot continue as the left wish to see that then we continue as nothing happens.
08:00My spirit is, I'm a Democrat, you know, we won elections, we have a mandate to leave, but we do this together with the others,
08:07with the liberals, with the socialists, and also with the conservative voters who are committed to be part of a European process.
08:15Let's talk a little bit about geopolitics, because everything is changing under the presidency of Donald Trump.
08:22Does Europe have enough self-confidence as one of the biggest markets and one of the richest regions of the world to, you know, stand up and stand its ground?
08:34Yes, I would say yes.
08:35In this moment of time, I'm quite positive.
08:38When it is about the answer on tariffs, for example, our answer was a strong one, but also not trying to escalate.
08:46So it was a balanced approach, look to what are we doing with the digital world, so that we are implementing the Digital Market Act,
08:54the Digital Service Act into today's communication forms.
08:58There we don't follow the Vance, the Vice President Vance concentration that everything is allowed.
09:03No, in Europe not everything is allowed.
09:05You cannot lie, you cannot do hate speeches there, you cannot be anti-Semitic in today's world in Europe.
09:09Not everything is allowed.
09:11And this implementation of our rules is making us self-confident, that we believe in the European way of life,
09:18not following the American, the Chinese or the Russian approach.
09:21I don't want to compare them, don't get me wrong.
09:24But where we still need more engagement is the defense side and the common external affairs policies, and that's the task ahead of us.
09:32When will Europe be able to defend itself alone?
09:35Will there be ever a time when, you know, we can do it without our American friends?
09:41I think that must be the aim, the idea, that in 2030, at the latest, we must be capable to defend ourselves.
09:50And Europe has all resources, have all capabilities, and has also the political will to do it.
09:55So let's do it, and for us as EPP it's always important to do this together with the American friends.
10:01We have some uncertainty with Washington in their communication, but in principle we define,
10:06we have the same thinking about democracy, about values, about freedom,
10:11and that's why we stick with our European pillar of defense to NATO and to the common engagement on the transatlantic side.
10:17And right now the European Union is willing to spend 800 billion euros on defense, rearmament, Europe.
10:25This means also less money for hospitals, for housing, less money for schools.
10:31How do you want to explain this to your voters?
10:33Well, in this moment of time we also allow member states to borrow more money.
10:38So we pay this more on future perspective, not so much on the current investments.
10:42So people should not be so much worried about this, but on the other hand, without peace, without stability, the rest is not important anymore.
10:51So what we have to do is to protect stability, peace inside of Europe, and the precondition is that we can defend ourselves.
10:59I think people understand the logic behind, and we do this in a way that we can secure our social welfare system,
11:06that we can secure the investments in a climate-friendly, in a digital world of tomorrow.
11:12So there are a lot of issues on the table, and we only can manage this if things are balanced finally.
11:18Let me ask you one last question.
11:20It's about the heritage of Pope Francis.
11:23He was considered as a very progressive head of the Catholic Church.
11:28You as a faithful Catholic, how will you preserve his heritage in your political life?
11:33I would hope that we keep our societies, and also the Catholic world together,
11:38because the different parts, the different sections, the different bubbles inside of our societies are getting bigger and bigger,
11:44and we have to unify again.
11:46That's also in the tradition of the Catholic Church, and also in the tradition of the European People's Party.
11:52Manfred Weber, thanks very much for this interview.
11:54I thank you so much.
11:55I thank you so much.