Macron offers vision for European renewal and wants euro zone to have its own budget

French President Emmanuel Macron offered an ambitious vision for European renewal on Tuesday, calling for the EU to work more closely on defence and immigration and for the euro zone to have its own budget, ideas he may struggle to implement.

In a nearly two-hour speech delivered two days after the German election in which Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative CDU/CSU bloc scored its worst result since 1949, limiting her freedom to manoeuvre on Europe, the 39-year-old French president held little back in terms of sweep, self-assurance and aspiration.

But at a time when Europe is beset by tensions between east and west and battling to overcome nearly a decade of draining economic crisis, Macron’s earnest and at times highbrow discourse ran the risk of falling on deaf ears.

Speaking at the Sorbonne, he portrayed Europe as needing to relaunch itself, saying that on issues as diverse as asylum, border protection, corporate tax, intelligence sharing, defence and financial stability it needed much deeper cooperation.

“The only path that assures our future is the rebuilding of a Europe that is sovereign, united and democratic,” the former investment banker and philosophy student said, flanked by a French and a European Union flag.

“At the beginning of the next decade, Europe must have a joint intervention force, a common defence budget and a joint doctrine for action.”