European Power in a Biden Era: what role for France and Germany?
Guests
Clément Beaune, French Minister of State for European Affairs
Franziska Brantner, Member of the German Bundestag
Mark Leonard, Director, ECFR
Chaired by
Christine Ockrent, Journalist, France Culture
ECFR’s latest polling finds that Europeans celebrated Joe Biden’s victory but are sceptical that we will see a global resurgence of US power and believe that China will become a stronger power than the US in the next ten years.
Most Europeans polled said that Europe can’t always rely on the US and it needs to look after its own defence.
How can France and Germany work together in their engagement with the new Biden administration when their own positions are often so far apart? Should the two countries continue pushing Europe towards strategic sovereignty, on issues from security and defence to climate and digital? And how will France take this agenda forward in its EU Council Presidency in 2022?