State of the Union: Von der Leyen and Metsola reelected, Trump nominated
Hello and welcome to State of the Union, I’m Stefan Grobe in Strasbourg.
It’s still July, but for European lawmakers it felt like back-toschool day.
Following the European elections in June, the new and old members of the European Parliament gathered in Strasbourg for the first plenary session of the new legislative season.
The 720-member chamber is the EU only directly elected institution, it negotiates and adopts EU legislative proposals and approves the bloc's budget.
On top of the agenda this week: the election of the top positions in Parliament and Commission - no real surprise here, as Roberta Metsola and Ursula von der Leyen were both confirmed in office. Metsola, who easily won a second term, got a little emotional when she recalled what Europe meant to her when she grew up in Malta.
“To me, Europe was worth fighting for. It was never perfect, but we looked to the European
Parliament, to this Strasbourg hemicycle, as a symbol of standards of opportunity, of reconciliation. It was our guarantee of the rule of law, of equality, of democracy, of liberty, of prosperity.”
While all eyes were on Strasbourg this week, it was business as usual in Brussels.
And for the EU Commission it meant grappling with the drama of the presidential campaign in the United States.
The attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania sent shockwaves through the corridors of power in Brussels.
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell reacted with condemnation and relief: “Fortunately, the attack on Trump was not what they wanted it to be, he is alive, thank God. And hopefully the campaign will normalize and Americans will decide what they think is right.”
The assassination attempt paired with the struggle inside the Democratic Party over whether President Joe Biden should drop out of the race have dramatically upended the election campaign. At the Republican Convention in Milwaukee this week, Trump was celebrated as a hero and a survivor of evil.
Republicans are now more confident than ever before to win in November, even to beat Biden in a landslide.
So, do we all have to fasten our belts and get ready for another Trump administration in Washington? What does that mean for Europe?
We spoke to Majda Ruge, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, based in Berlin.
Euronews: Following the assassination attempt, Trump and Biden have called for unity - how long can that moment last? Or is it already over?
Ruge: Well, the sort of unity that we're actually seeing is more in the Republican Party, I would say. I think Trump's call for unity is also a very subtle and intelligent tactics to reach out to either undecided or disgruntled Biden voters in the swing states. So, you know, I'm not expecting a sudden turn to, national unity, really, but more kind of an approach of unifying the Republican Party and then reaching out to voters that might be useful for President Trump. Euronews: European leaders have been preparing for a Trump victory in November - will they have to step up their efforts now?
Ruge: They definitely will have. I think the key question really on these preparations is not whether they should prepare and step up, but when they should have started, and I think they should have started long time ago, at least two years ago. Now it's very clear that there will be a radical shift in the U.S. foreign policy if Trump is reelected, and that the Europeans will be faced with multiple policy shocks at the same time, starting from potential withdrawal of U.S. aid for Ukraine over radical downsizing of U.S. military presence in Europe and their role in NATO through trade protectionism.
Euronews: What will bring a possible vice president JD Vance to future U.S.-EU relations?
Well, if you kind of look at his foreign policy profile, not that he has an active one as a government official, but he has been quite vocal, and active both in terms of interviews, statements and op-eds. He is a big, big sceptic of U.S. support for Ukraine. He thinks that the wealthy European nations, and he has singled out Germany many times, are the one who are
responsible for really financing and, you know, paying for this war.
He is kind of a restrainer in heart, but in fact, on foreign policy, a big prioritizer of China and Taiwan. So, I think that one thing we can expect as Europeans, if Trump is elected, is that JD Vance, his appointment as vice president is going to draw in many of the foreign policy experts in the Republican ecosystem who have long been arguing that a radical shift of military and financial resources needs to be made from Europe and Ukraine to China and Taiwan.