Macron Announces EU-African Union Summit Next February

France’s President Emmanuel Macron announced, on Thursday, a summit between the EU and the African Union in Brussels in February.

Macron has called for the EU to stand up for itself as a strategic and economic power in a crisis-ridden world by securing its external borders and controlling clandestine migration, deepening defence cooperation, and investing in high-tech industries.

“We should move from a Europe of co-operation within our frontiers to a powerful Europe in the world, fully sovereign, free to make its own choices and master of its destiny,” he said at the Elysée Palace in Paris outlining his plans for France’s six-month presidency of the EU in the first half of next year.

The president also called for a reform of the 26-nation Schengen zone and an improved emergency system to send security forces to guard external frontiers, such as those of Poland and Lithuania recently threatened with mass incursions by migrants at the instigation of Belarus.

He pointed out that Schengen procedures should be managed like the eurozone with regular ministerial meetings to ensure “a coherent policy for controlling our external frontiers”.

On a separate note, Macron is going to hold talks next week with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

“Our desire is to contact President Zelensky, whom I will see on Wednesday, and President Putin, with whom I will negotiate next week, restarting this format [Normandy format] and the political process,” Macron said at a press conference on Thursday.