French President Emmanuel Macron has defended the effectiveness of the European response to the Covid-19 crisis while calling on the EU to "decide faster and stronger" in the future.

"I hear this trial of Europe made every morning, this kind of ambient defeatism which consists in saying that Europe is not at the rendezvous", he declared in a speech kicking off the Conference on the Future of Europe at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. 

"I answer (to these critics) that on the contrary, in this crisis, it is a European model that has asserted itself... This model, our deep identity, is what made us stick and European cooperation has saved lives ", he added.

He regretted that democracy is "insidiously more and more contested... in the name of an alleged efficiency" of what he calls authoritarian regimes. 

"This productive, united, democratic model is our European identity...we must never let it weaken," he added.

"Faced with authoritarianism, the only valid answer is the authority of democracy" which "is won only by efficiency and speed", he insisted.

 "Our European democracy is a democracy of compromise, of balance, which is a virtue that we must protect, but it is also a weakness when it suffocates in its own procedures".

"We must decide faster and stronger", he demanded, in particular to strengthen "the sovereignty" of the continent in strategic sectors such as health.

Calling "for the return of big projects" and "big ambitions", he stressed that the Conference on the future of Europe was "an unprecedented exercise" to "consider our future" for the next 10 years.

Agence France-Presse