But we need to do that without leaving the burden to the few, be they countries of first entry or final host countries, by building the terms for genuine, chosen, organized and concerted solidarity. And it is through this foundation and common area that I propose to achieve that.
This solidarity and care for effectiveness begins with the work of each of us. That is why, in France, I have launched a vast reform to better handle refugees; increase resettlements within our country; speed up asylum procedures, drawing on the German model; and be more efficient in necessary returns. France is already beginning to do itself what I want to see for Europe.
We also need to look further, and I want to say clearly that even the most robust borders and most ambitious security policy will not suffice to curb longterm migration flows. Only stabilization and development in countries of origin will dry them up. Today’s great migrations are fuelled by the inequalities that have taken root and the resulting crises. While Europe needs a border, which we must protect and enforce, Europe must above all have a horizon. That horizon is its foreign policy, which needs clear priorities: the Mediterranean, the heart of our civilization, first and foremost. We have turned our backs on it, so as not to see its crises. But they are now scattered across the region.
Our common policy in the Mediterranean and in Africa now needs consolidating. In recent weeks, a few of us have sought to do so, constantly involving the European Union in the initiatives taken for Libya and for the Sahel. More generally, however, our European policy can no longer view Africa as a threatening neighbour, but as the strategic partner with which we need to confront tomorrow’s challenges: youth employment, mobility, combating climate change, and technological revolutions.
I would like our partnership with Africa to be an aspect of the overhaul of the European project. Development aid needs to be increased. I have committed to that, for France, and we will increase it each time, year after year. We will also do it better, because sums alone do not make a policy, and on this subject we are often obsessed with symbols. And we tend to think that a development policy boils down to figures. We will work better with civil society.
But this official development aid also needs to be European, with renewed ambition, and as such I am prepared, I wish, to relaunch on new foundations the project for a European financial transaction tax, in order to finance this policy.
We know the debate off by heart. Why do these initiatives always end in failure? Because the technical arrangements we eventually choose penalize one country rather than another. So I have a simple proposal. There are two countries in Europe which have a tax on financial transactions. There is France, and I say that with all the more humility because it is one of my predecessors who established it. So let’s take this tax, and generalize it across Europe, and I am prepared, even willing to give all its receipts to European official development aid.
But there is another country that also has a financial transaction tax: the United Kingdom, which long before us had what is known as stamp duty. Some fear unfair competition because, indeed, if we put in place a financial transaction tax that is excessive — something that was envisaged by certain predecessors for others — and damages our very ability to create economic activity, that is unsustainable. But if we decide, collectively, to adopt the British tax, nobody will be able to say that it creates disturbance or distortion of the European Union’s competitiveness. No! So we should choose one or the other of these simple systems, with a wide base, but at last, do it! In any case, I will be doing my utmost.
Page 1234567891011121314151617181920
