[1andrew1]

Interesting idea from Macron. To me it makes sense that one size does not fit all, in terms of European co-operation and trade.

Emmanuel Macron proposes new, broader European community
Victor Mallet in Paris

French president Emmanuel Macron has proposed a new European community of democracies that would be broader than the EU, and could include non-EU nations such as Ukraine and the post-Brexit UK.

In a speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Monday, Macron said it would take years or even decades for countries such as Ukraine to become EU members, even when they had been accepted as candidates.

“The European Union, given the level of its integration and ambition, cannot be in the short term the only means of structuring the European continent,” he said, recalling that former president François Mitterrand had proposed a European federation that would have included Russia as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989.

“It’s our historic obligation to respond to that today and to create what I would call a European political community,” Macron said. “This new European organisation would allow European democratic nations adhering to our core values to find a new space for co-operation on politics, security, energy, transport, infrastructure investments and the movement of people, especially the young.”

https://www.ft.com/content/4b4ad184-...a-8e698ab3ec3c