Solidarity implies duties and responsibilities to each other, French president said
Pursuing its own interests on the world stage at the expense of allies undermines the alliance’s cohesion. French President Emmanuel Macron said this on Friday following a meeting with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
“Solidarity between allies is not an opportunistic factor. It implies duties and responsibilities to each other, as well as a commitment to international law. Participating countries should not pursue personal conflicting interests that run counter to those of their allies”, – Macron pointed out.
According to him, such conflicts have been observed in Syria, Libya, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Caucasus. He also said there were divergences on cooperation at the arms level, “which is absolutely important within NATO”. Although Macron did not mention which countries in particular he was referring to, he had previously repeatedly criticised Turkey in this context.
Macron said he hoped the NATO summit scheduled for June 14 in Brussels would define the political and strategic role of the organisation and “allow greater cohesion based on the values and principles on which the alliance is based.” “We want to reinvigorate the North Atlantic Alliance, and to do this we need to clarify its integrity and the responsibility of each member,” he stressed.
“This is a unique opportunity to strengthen ties between Europe and North America. We should use this opportunity to make decisions aimed at the future, in particular on the NATO 2030 initiative”, – Stoltenberg said for his part. He noted that during the summit, participants should recommit to a collective approach to defence, as well as to increasing defence spending.
In November 2019, the French leader said in an interview with the British magazine The Economist that NATO had completely lost coordination within the alliance, which could be described as “brain death”. His statement was later criticised by a number of politicians. Macron subsequently indicated that he did not regret his remarks about NATO’s “brain death” because he believed they had sparked important discussions about the state of affairs in the North Atlantic Alliance.