By Michel Rose and Tassilo Hummel

PARIS (Reuters) -Reinforcing Europe’s sovereignty – from making certain its safety and defending its companies to higher controlling migration – might be a key intention of France’s European Union presidency, the nation’s chief Emmanuel Macron mentioned on Thursday.

France takes on the rotating six-month presidency of the EU at a time of crises, together with the COVID-19 pandemic and its financial aftermath, tensions with Russia, and heightened enterprise rivalries with China and the US.

“We should transfer from a Europe of cooperation inside our borders to a Europe that’s highly effective on this planet, totally sovereign, free in its selections and grasp of its future,” President Macron instructed a information convention at which he introduced France’s January-to-June EU programme.

A serious precedence, he mentioned, can be immigration, at a time when Belarus stands accused of engineering a refugee disaster by flying migrants within the Center East and pushing them to try to illegally cross its borders into EU states Poland and Lithuania.

Amongst France’s proposals might be establishing an emergency response drive to help EU states going through crises at their borders, Macron mentioned.

He additionally needs the bloc to have common political conferences on migration – like euro zone states already do on financial issues.

The bloc has been deeply divided for years in its response to immigration and the best way to police the widespread exterior borders of its Schengen space, and it stays to be seen how a lot France can obtain throughout its presidency of the EU Council of Ministers – which principally encompasses the agenda for conferences.

However Macron faces a presidential election in April, and conservative and far-right events are prone to make migration, on which he’s seen by some as a tender contact, a marketing campaign difficulty.

Key additionally to making sure the EU’s sovereignty is to progress on defence points, Macron mentioned.

Since his election in 2017, Macron has been pushing for the EU to face impartial when it comes to safety, and now not rely solely on U.S. navy safety inherited from World Struggle Two.

He mentioned he additionally hoped to make sure that the bloc’s companies don’t undergo from its insurance policies on combating local weather change.

A serious facet there might be pushing for an EU carbon border tax https://www.reuters.com/enterprise/sustainable-business/eu-proposes-worlds-first-carbon-border-tax-some-imports-2021-07-14 on a sequence of imports, one thing already put ahead by the EU’s government Fee to guard European industries from opponents overseas whose producers can produce at decrease price as a result of they aren’t charged for his or her carbon output.

Turning to the financial influence of COVID-19, Macron mentioned he would organise an EU progress summit in March. Boosting the bloc’s progress mannequin would require adjusting price range guidelines to make them extra simplified and clear, he mentioned.