Ursula von der Leyen's European Commission should beef up its geopolitical engagement by merging foreign and defense policies, the new EU commissioner in charge of economy said in Rome on Saturday
ROME (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th December, 2019) Ursula von der Leyen's European Commission should beef up its geopolitical engagement by merging foreign and defense policies, the new EU commissioner in charge of economy said in Rome on Saturday."The new European Commission has a clear intention to have a stronger geopolitical role... In general we clearly have the chance and, in some way, also the duty to be the European Union champions of free and fair trade, multilateralism, sustainability and rule of law," Paolo Gentiloni said.
Gentiloni, who used to be Italy's prime minister, presented his vision of the new commission in his first speech as a commissioner at the Mediterranean Dialogues forum. He said that the European Union's executive arm needed to unify its many policies.
"To reach a stronger geopolitical role we need to try to merge much better some aspects of the European policies - foreign, defense... trade policies and... strengthen the international role of our common Currency," he suggested.
The new commission under the presidency of the former German defense chief took office earlier this month after a month-long delay caused by rejection of several commission candidates.
