Almost a week after Donald Trump’s election victory, are European leaders any clearer on their strategic reaction to the ever-deteriorating geopolitical environment and the implications of his victory?
Or, amidst EU divisions on a range of issues, is the EU – not very strategically – just waiting to see how bad Trump 2.0 proves to be?
After the flurry of congratulations from European leaders, the day after US voters went to the polls (November 6), the weak and problematic German governing coalition collapsed. Then, on the Thursday evening after a European political Community meeting , the EU leaders had their own informal summit and issued a declaration, leadenly entitled: “Budapest Declaration on the New European Competitiveness Deal”. EU leaders may not be expected to comment frankly on how bad they fear Trump 2.0 will be for the EU and internationally. But at a time of conflict, instability, uncertainty, and climate and biodiversity crises, this declaration certainly ranks as underwhelming.
It begins: “Faced with new geopolitical realities, and economic and demographic challenges, we, the Leaders of the European Union, are determined to ensure our common economic prosperity, boost our competitiveness, making the EU the first climate-neutral continent in the world and ensuring the EU’s sovereignty, security, resilience and global influence.”
The leaders go on to emphasise 12 key action points suitable to the current state of the world of which the first is: “Intensifying our efforts to ensure a fully functioning Single Market.” Those in the UK who hope that Trump’s victory may lead to a more rapid and substantive rapprochement with the EU may find this emphasis on the single market a little inadequate to the current state of the world.
Setting aside informal summit declarations, was there any more light from the press conference held by the European Council president, Charles Michel, after the leaders’ dinner? Michel declared the EU’s willingness to strengthen transatlantic ties. But he knows, as we know, this is not what’s about to happen. He then concedes, the closest to frankness we get, that on bilateral trade and investment relations: “This is a challenge.”
Michel goes on to touch on the major crises and conflicts of Ukraine and the Middle East. These conflicts he declares require: “more dialogue and more efforts to make sure that we defend our common interests.” This is deliberately vague meaningless waffle. The EU has, and has had, no influence on the US support for Israel’s decimation of Gaza – whether the US president is Biden or Trump. The EU has its own divisions on Gaza that have left it sidelined and still, in many ways, complicit.
What now?
The EU’s leaders are especially worried at the impact of the looming Trump presidency on EU and US support for Ukraine. They’re worried about their own defence too and how Trump will engage with NATO. They know Trump is expected to withdraw from the Paris climate deal and to promote fossil fuels. How and whether American democracy will fare under Trump 2.0 is a wider concern. And, unsurprisingly given the EU’s top concern with its competitiveness and single market, they know Trump is likely to impose tariffs on the EU’s exports to the US (even if below the reported 60% level he will aim for with China).
The EU is not in the best of states to cope with this swerve into a populist, far-right US president. Germany is facing early elections – with its own far right currently doing better in the polls than all three parties in the disbanded governing coalition. In France, President Macron has just over two years left of his mandate – and no mandate in the Assemblée Nationale after this summer’s elections. The European Parliament now has a quarter of its MEPs coming from far-right parties – and the Parliament’s centre-right, the European People’s Party, seems willing on some issues to work with the far-right.
On migration and asylum-seekers, the EU has shifted steadily over the last several years towards the positions of far right parties. If and when Trump starts to deport illegal migrants, the EU is not going to be in much of a position to talk about human rights or treating migrants and asylum-seekers with respect.
On climate change, the EU has been better – the EU’s Green Deal a vital positive strategy. But Ursula von der Leyen, starting her second term as Commission president, weakened key sustainability reforms in the agricultural sector in order to ensure her re-appointment. And she has gone along with EU leaders in putting competitiveness and security ahead of the EU’s climate leadership (a leadership anyway in doubt as the EU currently looks like failing to meet its 2030 climate targets).
On trade, the EU will have to decide how to respond to Trump imposing tariffs – presumably by mirroring them but looking for some more positive way through rather than an ever deeper trade war.
There’s an old saying that the EU is always at its best, or makes most progress, in a crisis. But the EU’s current weakness, in the increasingly unstable global context, does not suggest that sort of optimism is appropriate.
And the UK?
Where does the UK fit into all of this? To some extent as an after-thought. The UK is still a large economy by European standards and its support for Ukraine is significant. Perhaps, the EU and UK will manage to cooperate more closely on climate change. Possibly, they will ease a few trade barriers between them. But will the EU and UK be able to support Ukraine enough, if the US weakens or removes its support? The EU should, minimally, be accelerating Ukraine’s EU accession process but this is not going to happen (and the UK has no influence here). And while Germany and the UK continue to supply arms to Israel, as the destruction continues and famine stalks the north, there is no pan-European consensus on how to end Israel’s Middle East wars, nor any European influence either.
Some hope that Trump 2.0 may accelerate the UK’s return to the EU fold, or at least encourage a more substantive approach than Keir Starmer has shown so far. Perhaps a return to the EU’s single market, for instance?
But Starmer gained his massive majority on a small share of the vote. His sights are already set on the next election in 2029. There is nothing to suggest he would re-open Brexit divisions – divisions that are, anyway, essentially within England not pan-UK. And UK politics are not remotely in a settled and calm enough state to suggest that, in the highly unlikely case that the UK government suddenly decided to undo Brexit and ask to re-join the EU, the EU would be remotely interested.
Trump’s re-election has, in just a week, worked to shine a very harsh light on the EU’s current political and strategic weakness – and that too of the UK. Serious European political leadership is needed that recognises the deep instability of our times. But muddling through is more likely the order of the day. And leadership may have to come from elsewhere.
First published on the author’s Europe & Scotland Newsletter on Substack
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