Former European Commissioner Thierry Breton was in Monaco on the evening of Monday, October 5 to ask whether Europe can still make its voice heard in a world increasingly shaped by great-power rivalry. His talk, titled “Europe alone, facing the new empires”, was hosted by the Monaco Méditerranée Foundation in the Salle des Arts at the One Monte-Carlo conference centre.
Breton, who served as French finance minister and was European Commissioner for the internal market from 2019 until he stepped down in 2024, spoke about the strategic challenges facing the continent. The foundation framed the evening around a return to power politics, the rise of new powers and a changing global economy, and asked whether Europe could defend its interests by itself.
It is a theme Breton has been developing for months. In a January essay for Le Grand Continent, he argued that a community of democracies with more than 450 million citizens should be able to match the new empires if it chooses to. He has since set out proposals on European defence and on the role of France and Germany.
The foundation was set up in 2004 by Enrico Braggiotti and has the High Patronage of His Serene Highness Prince Albert II. It holds regular conferences with leading political, academic and public figures, and its most recent guest before Breton was the astronaut Thomas Pesquet, who spoke at the same venue on September 11.
Image courtesy of Direction de la Communication – Stéphane Danna