France “can count on” Cyprus when the island takes over the Council of the European Union’s rotating presidency at the beginning of next month, French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday.

“France knows that we can count on you to ensure that Europe asserts its own interests and strategic autonomy,” he said following the signing of a strategic partnership by the governments of Cyprus and France in Paris.

He said both countries “share the same vision for a strong and sovereign Europe, facing our challenges and security threats”, with those threats including unfair trade practices and threats to our democracy and to our youth, as well as electoral interference and the protection of our children in the age of social media.

Additionally, he said, his Cypriot counterpart Nikos Christodoulides “can count on France’s support to strengthen security and defence on our continent”, including to “continue our support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression and to reach a just and lasting solution” to the war.

He also said that Cyprus can count on France’s support to help in the implementation of “an agenda of competitiveness, regulatory simplification, European preference, investment in strategic sectors, and the defence of the capital markets union”.

In this, the “European preference” refers to businesses, individuals, and governments being incentivised into electing to purchase goods and services from within the European single market rather than without, while the “capital markets union” is an EU initiative which aims to integrate and unite the bloc’s member states’ capital markets.

Were the initiative to be completed, investments and savings would be able to flow more easily across the bloc.

Macron on Monday also made reference to the multiannual financial framework – the EU’s budget for the period covering the years between 2028 and 2034, saying that it will “serve a competitive and sovereign EU”, while also speaking of plans for “strengthened agricultural and cohesion policies”.

He also spoke on the matter of migration and asylum, with the implementation of the EU’s pact on migration set to begin to be enacted during the first half of next year.

This pact, he said, will allow for “the protection of the union’s borders” and to “guarantee the balance between solidarity and responsibility”.

“You know that for this presidency, France will be by your side, supporting your initiatives, and acting in an advisory capacity with you,” he said.

France has held the Council of the EU’s rotating presidency 13 times, most recently in the first half of 2022.