Europe to intensify arms control programs

PARIS: French President Emmanuel Macron warned Friday ( Saturday in Manila) that European nations “cannot remain spectators” in the face of a potential nuclear arms race and urged them to push an “international arms control agenda.”

“Europeans must realize collectively that in the absence of a legal framework, they could rapidly face a new race for conventional weapons, even nuclear weapons, on their own soil,” Macron said in a speech laying out France’s post-Brexit strategy for its nuclear arsenal.

He added that France had already reduced the number of its warheads to under 300, providing “the legitimacy to demand concrete moves from other nuclear powers toward global disarmament that is gradual, credible and can be verified.”

After Brexit, France is the only nuclear power within EU borders, at a time when long-standing accords on limiting the growth of nuclear stockpiles appear at risk.

The United States has suggested it will not extend New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, an arms reduction treaty signed in 2010, and both Washington and Moscow have abandoned the IntermediateRange Nuclear Forces Treaty.

Macron said France remains convinced that Europe’s long-term security depends on a strong alliance with the US, its key partner in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization alliance. “But our security also depends, inevitably, on a greater capacity for autonomous action by Europeans,” he said.

As a result, European nations should be signatories of any new deal to limit the development of new intermediate- range weapons, Macron said.

“Let us be clear: If negotiations and a more comprehensive treaty are possible ... Europeans must be stakeholders and signatories, because it’s our territory” that is most at risk, he said.

Macron has already begun a costly modernization of France’s atomic arsenal, arguing in January 2018 that “deterrence is part of our history, part of our defense strategy.”