'France Trying to Regain Initiative On European Level' - Strategic Researcher

Europe should build a joint security infrastructure with Russia. This is what French President Emmanuel Macron said at a joint press conference with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto. Macron stated that Europe can no longer rely on the US for security and also noted that Paris should seek a strategic partnership with Moscow and Ankara.

Sputnik has discussed this with Paolo Raffone, a strategic analyst, and director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels.

Sputnik: What is your take on the statement made by French President Emmanuel Macron about a joint security infrastructure with Russia, this seems almost quite surprising?

Paolo Raffone: Yes. Actually surprising, but on the other side, France has held a lot of soft centrality in the strategic issues. They maintain some presence in Africa, but, basically, on the transnational issues, they found themselves in a corner, despite their relations with the US that were re-launched last year with President Trump. But France is trying to regain an initiative at the European level.

So this is why this speech of Macron is relevant also to try to maintain a position in which they would find an alternative for issues that go beyond the security matters, because there's, of course, a financial storm that may come and Europe may find itself in serious difficulties without having an alternative to the tie to the dollar. Also, the US disengagement from Europe is not something new.

It's not just something that arrived with President Trump but started at the time of Obama. France is trying to regain a centrality in the dialogue within the European and Eurasian space, launching this initiative. We have also to recall that last year there was this agreement among 23 European nations, 23 out of 28. This is something that's not really a surprise, but it is something that is moving now for about 2-3 years in this direction.

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Sputnik: Do you think there was a single event that led to this?

Paolo Raffone: What is happening in the Middle East and Africa is clearly a sign of the fact that France, in particular, is losing ground. Look at what happened in Syria. So for France, this is a sign, that its post-colonial and post-imperial position is weakened.

They have to find new alliances and because of the presence of Russia in that area it is evidence that future dialogue is with Russia more than the US; add to this the difficulties in the relations with Iran and you also see that France wants to defend the nuclear agreement but the US doesn't want to follow it. So it is necessary to reconfigure all the relations based the reality of today's forces. The trigger evidently has been released.

Sputnik: Do you think that it's likely his initiative will be supported by other European leaders and which ones?

Paolo Raffone: The European leaders, they cooperate, but they're also competing. So the initiative of France may trigger some interest from the UK and probably Italy too, but the relations on a number of outstanding issues, especially, in the Middle East are very delicate. So we have to see if they find common ground so that everybody finds a guarantee to work together on these matters.

In this perspective, the bilateral relations with Russia of each of the European states may work as a platform on which a Eurasian agreement can be made, that would be Eurasian and Mediterranean agreement. It's quite clear that over the past years the presence of Russia and China in the Mediterranean has changed the balance of power.

READ MORE: Macron Not Likely to Seek Partnership with Russia, Turkey — French Party

Sputnik: How does this all fit in with NATO though?

Paolo Raffone: NATO is a structure that has worked since the Second World War to guarantee the European security under the US umbrella, but we've seen the Obama presidency and since that time there's been a number of signs that NATO is an old structure and not necessarily corresponding anymore to the US' interests.

The slow disengagement from that structure of the US is quite evident, and Europeans may take over NATO and open it to make it become a larger agreement including also non-European states at one point. Basically, this is what was attempted in the 70s with the OSCE; with the Helsinki agreements of that time.

READ MORE: France Not Seeking to Isolate Russia, Expects Cooperation in Return — French FM

Sputnik: Speaking of NATO we have Turkey which was also mentioned in his comment. Turkey is a member of NATO but relations between Turkey and Europe have worsened of late, can you comment on what perspectives you see, some kind of change in the relationship between France and Turkey and, in any case, the European Union and Turkey?

Paolo Raffone: Well, the difficulties of Turkey more than with Europe are with the US because again of the Syrian engagement of Turkey in the area and the relations with Israel. So Turkey has serious problems now in the relationship with the United States; although, it is a NATO member-state and it is one of the largest armies in the NATO spectrum.

With Europe actually, there are no major problems. As we know Germany and Turkey, they have excellent relations and the refugee crisis has demonstrated it with the EU lending a lot of money to Turkey. Italy also has a large trade exchange with Turkey. So there's no interest to cut relations. France has taken some stance against Turkey because it was trying also to appease the French-US relations, but now they probably realized that it's time to reassess this kind of position. So it's a very open-ended kind of reconfiguration.

It is difficult to see if it will quickly find a settlement, but certainly, there are a number of signals that European member-states are all looking East in a sense that relations with China and Russia have to be restored. Because this is the natural trading area and there are investments from China into Europe and from Europe into China and Russia is part of these kinds of deals.

Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Paolo Raffone and do not necessarily reflect those of Sputnik.