World
Macron’s comments on EU ‘strategic autonomy’ spark disagreement
Emmanuel Macron’s feedback about Taiwan and his name for European “strategic autonomy” sparked controversy as he advocated for the EU to not change into followers of the US and China.
The feedback have been printed in two information shops after Macron visited China final week, the place he met with President Xi Jinping.
For some, his remarks might crack European unity and transatlantic solidarity, however not all observers denounce the strategic autonomy defended by Paris.
“President Macron has for a number of years now, repeatedly emphasised his view that Europe ought to develop what he calls strategic autonomy… I do not see that as a menace to transatlantic unity in any respect,” mentioned Dan Baer, director of the Europe Programme on the Carnegie Endowment for Worldwide Peace.
Baer says that it could be additionally within the US’ finest curiosity to defend a European technique.
“I feel there are many folks within the US who would help the concept that Europe ought to do extra to be a strategic actor in its personal proper,” the analyst mentioned.
“And Europe stepping as much as do extra, particularly within the gentle of the threats each proximity and world in at this time’s space could be an excellent factor”.
Some have criticised the timing of the feedback, as after Macron left China, Beijing launched army workouts encircling Taiwan.
For Mario Esteban, an analyst at Actual Instituto Elcano the thought of a European third manner appears difficult as a result of the safety of the EU at present is determined by america.
“We must always observe the US so far as it’s in our curiosity,” he mentioned. “It is apparent that our values and our pursuits are usually not the identical because the US however are nearer to the US than to China.
“I do not assume we must always blindly observe the US however speaking about neutrality or equidistance right here, I feel it is not very life like as a result of neither our values nor our pursuits are equidistant from Washington and Beijing,” he mentioned.
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Once reliant on coal for the majority of its electricity, the country of 36 million that currently holds the EU rotating presidency is trying to reduce its dependence on the fossil fuel.
With many mines becoming unprofitable and old infrastructure in decline, the Polish government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk has planned a gradual closure of coal facilities in the south of the country. As the coal regions of the country come to terms with this shift, northern Poland adjacent to the Baltic Sea is booming.
Ignacy Niemczycki, the deputy minister in the Chancellery, briefed a handful of Brussels-based journalists on board the Jantar passenger ship, telling Euronews that the wind farm should have a lifecycle of up to 30 years and be a major part of the energy transition.
“It’s in the interest of the Polish economy to invest in renewables, nuclear, and gas to stabilise the grid,” the minister told Euronews.
Baltic Power – a joint venture between ORLEN and Northland Power
Situated 23 kilometres off the northern coast near Choczewo and Łeba, the wind farm is among the most advanced renewable energy projects in the Polish Economic Zone. The final installed capacity of the project is expected to reach 1140 MW, enough to supply electricity to approximately 1.5 million Polish households.
Poland also to invest in nuclear
Renewables will only be one part of the Polish energy mix. Plans for the first ever nuclear plant, which will also be located on Poland’s northern Baltic Sea coast, were put in place under the former Law and Justice (PiS) government and have been continued by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s current ruling coalition.
Niemczycki told Euronews that a second nuclear project is being considered and Poland is keeping a close eye on Canada as it experiments with the first ever mini nuclear plant, known as a Small Modular Reactor (SMR). SMRs could can potentially power up to 300 MW(e) per unit.
“We will see a major change in Poland’s energy mix over the next 15 years,” said Niemczycki. “Nuclear will become the new baseline, with renewables and gas providing flexibility and stability.”
Turbulent relations between France and Israel are nothing new, but even by those historical standards the crisis caused by President Emmanuel Macron’s apparently imminent readiness to recognize a Palestinian state is acute.
The postponement, as a result of fighting between Israel and Iran, of a United Nations conference this week convened to explore the creation of a Palestinian state has deferred any announcement but appears to have redoubled Mr. Macron’s resolve. “Whatever the circumstances, I have stated my determination to recognize a Palestinian state,” Mr. Macron said on Friday. “That determination is whole.”
“We must reorganize it as soon as we can,” he said of the conference, which he was to chair with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia. French officials close to Mr. Macron say he has told the crown prince of his firm intention to recognize a Palestinian state.
Vilified by Israel as leading “a crusade against the Jewish state,” and spurned in his peacemaking efforts by the United States, which is implacably opposed to the conference and has urged countries to shun it, Mr. Macron is confronted by a diplomatic predicament that will test his renowned adaptability, viewed by some as wobbliness.
Mr. Macron — outraged, like much of the world, by the almost 56,000 Palestinians killed by Israel in Gaza since the start of the war, and by its near or total blockade of the strip in recent months — has spoken of “a moral duty and political requirement” to recognize a Palestinian state.
In the absence of Israeli plans for Gaza, and in the face of Israel’s bombardment of Iran aimed at destroying its nuclear program, Mr. Macron believes that only a strong political commitment to Palestinian statehood can open the way to a two-state peace, persuade Hamas to lay down its arms and eventually advance regional stability.
The Israeli view is the opposite: that French recognition would reward Hamas terrorism. A senior French envoy, speaking on condition of anonymity, said she was dressed down for several hours this month in Jerusalem by Ron Dermer, the Israeli minister of strategic affairs, and Tzachi Hanegbi, the national security adviser, who told her that Mr. Macron serves the ends of Hamas and “supports a terrorist state.”
“I suspect there is some relief at the postponement,” said Lakhdar Brahimi, a former Algerian foreign minister and long a senior U.N. diplomat, referring to the conference’s French and Saudi co-chairs. “What are they going to do without U.S. support? This will change nothing on the ground.”
The history of ties between Israel and France, which hesitated before recognizing the newborn state in 1949, only to provide critical military and technological support, has known many highs and lows. “This is a moment of particularly extreme tension,” said Miriam Rosman, an Israeli historian who wrote a book on the relationship. “Macron is neither consequential nor coherent and may be on the verge of a grave error.”
That is not the view of several officials in Mr. Macron’s entourage, including his diplomatic adviser, Emmanuel Bonne, and his Middle East adviser, Anne-Claire Legendre. They share the conviction of a growing number of European states, many previously supportive of Israel, that the most right-wing government in Israel’s history is leading the country down a blind alley at devastating cost in Palestinian lives.
For Israel, France is a point of particular sensitivity. Spanish, Irish and Norwegian recognition of a Palestinian state last year was one thing; French recognition would be of a different order, given the intensity of an emotional historical bond.
France is the only nuclear power and only permanent member of the U.N. Security Council in the European Union. Some 150,000 French citizens live in Israel, according to the foreign ministry; 48 of them were among the 1,200 people killed in the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack.
“There is fundamental French attachment and commitment to Israel that stems in part from the history of the Vichy regime,” said Gilles Kepel, a leading French expert on the Middle East. The regime, which led a rump France under Nazi occupation, deported 76,000 Jews to their deaths.
France made a critical contribution in the 1950s to Israel’s development of its unacknowledged nuclear bomb. It provided Mirage fighter jets that played an important role in Israel’s defense.
In 1967, however, President Charles de Gaulle called the Jews an “elite people, sure of itself and domineering.” Israel was outraged. Seeking to heal the wounds of the Algerian war, he set out to befriend the Arab world and imposed an arms embargo on Israel.
Support for Israel has since been tempered by an unbending French commitment to a Palestinian state, initially laid out before the Knesset in 1982 by President François Mitterrand, the first French head of state to visit Israel. Unlike the United States, France has been consistent in its rejection of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, which has turned Palestinian statehood into an ever more distant chimera.
“Recognition and full admission of the Palestinian state to the United Nations are a precursor to a political solution,” said a French statement that reflected Mr. Macron’s thinking and was intended to set the framework for the conference in New York.
This amounts to the antithesis of the Israeli and American positions that any Palestinian state demands prior negotiation on security, borders, governance and other matters. But that approach has yielded nothing for a long time. Just this month, Israel announced it would build 22 new settlements in the West Bank, the largest expansion in two decades.
“The United States opposes any steps that would unilaterally recognize a conjectural Palestinian state,” the Trump administration said in a cable last week first reported by Reuters.
On Thursday, Mr. Macron posted a statement on X lauding Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, saying that a letter “of hope, courage and clarity” received from him last Tuesday “traced the path toward a horizon of peace.”
In the letter, Mr. Abbas called for Hamas to “hand over its weapons,” immediately free all hostages and leave Gaza. He also committed to reform the notoriously corrupt and ineffective Palestinian Authority.
The letter met several of the conditions set by Mr. Macron for French recognition of a Palestinian state. But other voices close to the president are pushing him in another direction.
“The very idea of Palestinian state can only be envisaged after Hamas has laid down its arms, its commanders in Gaza have gone into exile, and the people of the West Bank and Gaza have renounced their murderous dream of a Palestine stretching from the sea to the Jordan border,” said Bernard-Henri Lévy, a French author and intellectual who has the ear of Mr. Macron.
He suggested that Mr. Macron was still torn, buffeted from both sides, but leaning in the direction of delaying French recognition, which the president has said should not come in isolation. Germany, a close ally of both France and Israel, said this month that recognition would send “the wrong signal.”
As for Prince Mohamed of Saudi Arabia, he finds himself obliged to juggle his close relationship with President Trump and his determination to advance Palestinian statehood. While the prince has described Israel’s war in Gaza as “genocide,” Mr. Macron has gone through contortions to appear balanced since Oct. 7, 2023.
The French president governs the largest Muslim and Jewish populations in Western Europe. He is confronted by a far left that has made “Free Palestine” its slogan and by the inescapability of France’s historical debt to Jews.
“This is no gift” and comes “far, far too late,” Rima Hassan, a far-left French member of the European Parliament, who is of Palestinian descent, said in April of Mr. Macron’s stated intention to recognize a Palestinian state. She was recently detained by Israel when aboard a charity vessel trying to take aid to Gaza and was later released.
Now Mr. Macron, the “at-the-same-time” president, so-called for his endless equivocations, must make up his mind. Of the 193 U.N. members, 147 have already recognized a Palestinian state.
But, as Itamar Rabinovich, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington, put it, “French recognition would bring greater diplomatic pressure on Israel and further erosion of our legitimacy, but not the creation of a Palestinian state any time soon, if ever.”
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Some of the most influential evangelical leaders in the U.S. told Fox News Digital that they believe President Donald Trump’s support for Israel is unwavering as the Jewish state finds itself at war with Iran.
Speaking before and after the start of Israel’s military campaign against the regime, the leaders highlighted the millennialong connection of the Jewish people to their historical homeland, while also emphasizing the shared values rooted in biblical teachings.
The evangelical community helped deliver the White House to President Donald Trump and, therefore, believes his administration should support Israel’s biblical rights to its historical heartland of Judea and Samaria, Dr. Mike Evans, founder of Friends of Zion, told Fox News Digital.
“We hold strongly to that stand. President Trump won because of the Evangelical vote. There are 52 million of us in America, and we are Bible believers,” he continued. “Jesus said, ‘You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria,’” he said. His organization claims nearly 30 million members.
TRUMP SAYS ISRAEL AND IRAN ‘HAVE TO FIGHT IT OUT’ BUT BELIEVES DEAL IS POSSIBLE
An Israeli soldier attaches an Israeli flag on top of an armored personnel carrier near Israel’s border with Gaza, in southern Israel, on Monday, April 15, 2024. (AP)
Evans praised the president’s stance on Iran, saying, “The Trump strategy is brilliant because he’s giving Iran a way out, but he’s not taking it off the table that the U.S. will bomb Iran. Quite the contrary, he’s made it very clear that if Iran does anything to attack U.S. bases in the Middle East or Americans, they will have hell to pay.”
Pastor John Hagee, founder and chairman of Christians United for Israel, which numbers 10 million members, told Fox News Digital that Israel has long been a central concern for American evangelicals, a priority that has only intensified since the 9/11 attacks and more recently in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre. For evangelical Christians, he said, support for Israel is rooted in religious conviction rather than political ideology. They view appeasement of Iran or engagement with terrorists not just as flawed policy, but as morally wrong and fundamentally evil.
Just days before Israel’s preemptive strike against Iran, and amid isolationist criticism against Israel, Hagee told Fox News Digital, “I do not think President Trump will allow himself to be played by Iranian negotiators or American isolationists. When it’s all said and done, I believe President Trump is willing to do what it takes to ensure Iran is defanged either by enabling our strongest ally, Israel, to defend itself or otherwise.”
Israeli air defenses seen in the skies over northern Israel during an Iranian missile attack. June 16, 2025. (Photos by Anthony Hershko/TPS-IL)
Following Israel’s surprise attack on Iran, Hagee released a recorded message as part of an action alert asking his supporters to contact President Trump, thank him for his support of Israel and urge him to continue.
“We must stand with Israel today and every day. Iran’s future as an evil force in the Middle East is now in question. Only the people of Iran can take the country back. But Israel has opened the door for them and given the world room to breathe. Now the U.S. must take its seat at the head of the international table and stand alongside the only American ally in the free world willing to do what is necessary to protect the free world,” Hagee said.
HUCKABEE CONDEMNS EFFORTS TO ERASE JEWISH HISTORY TO THE HOLY LAND AS ‘ABSURD’
Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, posted about the growing threat Iran poses to both Israel and the United States on X.
“Iran has said that they want to wipe Israel off the face of the map. They would also like to destroy America. Iran is a sponsor of terror … Israel has been forced into defending itself and needs our prayers,” he added. “All of us who believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and trust Him should ‘Pray for the peace of Jerusalem’ (Psalm 122:6). Pray that this can be resolved quickly.”
Graham pointed to the long connection of the Jewish people to their historic homeland, while also emphasizing the shared values rooted in biblical teachings.
From left to right, Franklin Graham, Dr. Mike Evans and Pastor John Hagee are urging President Donald Trump to continue backing Israel as the Jewish state fights a war against Iran. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images | Mike Evans; Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images | John Hagee; CUFI/Cornerstone Church, San Antonio, TX.)
“Most evangelical Christians believe the Bible and, of course, we believe Genesis, we believe God gave the land to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and that every inch of that land belongs to the Jews,” Graham told Fox News Digital.
He underscored the importance of continued U.S. support for Israel, citing both strategic and democratic considerations.
“The U.S. government has supported Israel since it became a nation, and for that support to continue is extremely important. It’s the only democracy in the Middle East, the only place where elections are held. No one else in that part of the world has the kinds of freedoms that Israelis have,” Graham said.
Evans, also quoting scripture, noted that, “In Genesis chapter 12, God said, ‘I will bless those who bless you, and I will curse him who curses you.’ Evangelicals believe that pressuring Israel to give up land will bring a curse on America. If they have to choose between God’s word and anyone else’s, they will choose God’s word,” he said.
Hagee also cited biblical teachings that promise blessings for those who bless Israel, framing the principle as both a spiritual conviction and a practical truth.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks at a meeting in Tehran, Iran, on Feb. 5, 2020. Khamenei said Wednesday that President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan will not outlive the president. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
“Consider the tangible results that cannot be denied—whether through intelligence and technology sharing or fighting on the front lines of the global war on terror, America has been blessed by supporting Israel in numerous ways. If we turn our backs on Israel, not only will God turn His back on America, but we will lose freedom’s foothold in the Middle East,” he told Fox News Digital.
ISRAEL’S ACTIONS AGAINST IRAN CREATE STRATEGIC OPPORTUNITY FOR US IN NUCLEAR TALKS, EXPERTS SAY
Hagee noted that the issue has become deeply personal for many in the United States, especially in light of recent antisemitic attacks on American soil. These include the terror incident in Boulder, Colorado, where an illegal Egyptian immigrant injured 15 people with Molotov cocktails during a march supporting hostages still held by Hamas in Gaza, as well as the fatal shooting outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C., which claimed the lives of two staff members from the Israeli Embassy.
“We expect Congress to take up meaningful legislation aimed at combating the scourge of violent antisemitism raging across the country,” Hagee said.
He condemned the political delays surrounding the Antisemitism Awareness Act and the lack of progress on the Countering Hate Against Israel by Federal Contractors Act, which would prohibit federal agencies from engaging with companies that promote a boycott of Israel.
“That Congress continues to dither here is shameful,” Hagee said.
For his part, Evans told Fox News digital that another issue that the Trump administration appears to be confronting aggressively: a French-Saudi-sponsored conference to push for the recognition of a Palestinian state.
Pastor John Hagee speaks during “March For Israel” at the National Mall on Nov. 14, 2023 in Washington, D.C.
“We’re not overly concerned, because we know the president will oppose this move at the U.N. Security Council,” he said. “The United States will not back a Palestinian state at this time, as the entire premise of statehood has been based on land-for-peace—a concept that assumes Israel can secure peace by relinquishing territory. But Israelis have given up land and lost lives in the process, and it hasn’t worked.”
“Israel is facing an existential threat and can no longer capitulate or play the land-for-peace game. Palestinians can lead a better life, as we’ve seen with Israeli Arabs, who have a better quality of life in Israel than anywhere else in the Middle East,” Evans continued. “The only way forward is if they stop resorting to terrorism, and we believe the president supports this position of moral clarity, as do all Evangelicals.”
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