Make Europe Great Again

WASHINGTON/BERLIN (Own report) – Foreign policy experts are calling for the EU’s concerted effort in opposition to a future USA governed by Donald Trump. According to the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR), a unified European stance is necessary to increase “leverage” over Washington. If the US President-elect ignores Europe’s interests, Europe should consider going its own way in global policies, writes a German author in the leading US foreign policy periodical. It may be necessary “to consider whether to develop a European nuclear umbrella.” These demands began to be heard after liberal Western media and members of the foreign policy establishment had declared Merkel the new “leader of the free world,” and characterized outgoing US President Barack Obama’s visit to Germany as “passing the baton” to Berlin. The Federal Republic of Germany is setting out to take on “America’s status as torchbearer of liberal democracy.” “It is befitting for Merkel to speak in the name of what we have been calling the West, for the past seven decades,” according to the business press. Journalists describe the predominant attitude in Berlin already as being “the guardians of the international post-war order.”

Germany: Trump victory to spur EU military union

German soldiers on patrol in Afghanistan (Photo: Wir. Dienen. Deutschland.)

 

Donald Trump’s victory, as well as Brexit, ought to speed up plans for EU defence integration, Germany has said.

“Europe needs common political will for more security policy relevance. The outcome of the election in America could provide an additional impetus”, German defence minister Ursula von der Leyen said in an opinion article in the Rheinische Post, a German newspaper, on Thursday (10 November).

“The Brexit decision and the election in the United States have set a new course” for the EU, she added.

She said it was “difficult for Germany and Europe, on the day after the election, to assess what to expect from a Trump presidency”.