We must now “show our teeth” to protect the economic interests of the European Union, believes Bruno Le Maire

The Minister of the Economy did not mince his words in front of the press this Thursday. Ahead of a meeting scheduled for Monday in Paris on European industrial policy, with his German and Italian counterparts, Robert Habeck and Adolfo Urso, Bruno Le Maire assured that “the time for happy globalization (was) over”. We must now “show our teeth” to protect Europe’s economic interests, he insisted. The first two trilaterals, in June and October, in Berlin then Rome, were devoted to supplying the EU with critical raw materials and then to artificial intelligence. That of Monday is “major”, according to Bruno Le Maire, because, just before the European elections, it is “the moment to assert a certain number of ambitions of the three leading European economies before the new Commission and before the new European Parliament ".

The combined GDP of the three countries represents more than 50% of the total GDP of the EU. “We must be able to innovate, invest, master new technologies, but also show our teeth in the face of economic adversaries (notably China and the United States, editor's note) who will do absolutely nothing to us in the 21st century. gift,” said the minister. For him, “the time for happy globalization is over”, in favor of a “globalization of rivalry”. Among the projects discussed on Monday are the strengthening of Europe's energy independence and administrative simplification.

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Bruno Le Maire intends to propose to the new Commission a directive to simplify European standards. While the EU is experiencing a trade deficit of 200 billion euros with China, Bruno Le Maire wants to discuss, despite "German reluctance on this subject" a "rebalancing of environmental rules" for production, which are much stricter in EU than in China. This does not prevent France from wanting China to “remain a major trading partner”, according to Bercy.

The ministry also underlined that the two other ministers “completely share” the general statement of emergency drawn up by Bruno Le Maire. Among the simplification measures, Bruno Le Maire wants to propose raising the threshold of employees from 250 to 500 for companies concerned by certain accounting, financial or social obligations imposed on SMEs by the EU, the same source indicated. Two recent directives considered very burdensome by SMEs, the CSRD (extra-financial reporting) and the CS3D (duty of vigilance), currently present this threshold of 250 employees. The meeting on Monday will end with a joint press conference at 2 p.m.