Europe’s leaders can no longer deny that the relationship with US has changed | European Union

Analysts say the US national security strategy represents a seismic shift in transatlantic relations, while António Costa, President of the European Council of National Leaders, warned the Donald Trump administration not to interfere in European affairs.

The document, published on Friday, claims Europe faces the “erasure of civilization” due to immigration and warns that a censorious EU “undermines political freedom and sovereignty”. He says the US will “develop resistance” in the bloc to “correct its current course”. Analysts said the document confirmed not only the Trump administration’s hostility towards Europe but also its ambition to weaken it.

Costa said Washington’s signal that it would support European nationalist parties was unacceptable. In his speech on Monday, he said he and Trump have long had differences on issues such as climate change, but the new strategy “goes beyond that.” He said that we cannot accept the threat of intervention in European politics.

“Allies do not threaten to interfere with the domestic political choices of their allies,” the former Portuguese prime minister said. “The United States cannot replace Europe in its vision of freedom of expression… Europe must dominate.”

While the strategy document was welcomed by the Kremlin at the weekend, stating that it “corresponds to our vision in many respects”, EU-US relations were further strained by the EU’s $120 million (£90 million) fine imposed on Elon Musk’s social media platform X.

Musk said on Sunday that the bloc should be “abolished and sovereignty returned to individual countries.” US deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau said the “unelected, undemocratic and unrepresentative” EU was undermining US security.

Analysts said the document codified the US strategy first laid out by J.D. Vance in a speech at this year’s Munich Security Conference accusing EU leaders of stifling free speech, failing to stop illegal immigration and evading voters’ true beliefs.

“It turns this doctrine into an officially supported state line,” said Nicolai von Ondarza, head of European studies at the German Institute for International and European Affairs. “This truly represents a fundamental shift in transatlantic relations.”

Von Ondarza said that “clear US support for regime change”, particularly in Europe, meant that “it is no longer really possible for EU and national European leaders to deny that US strategy towards its European allies has changed fundamentally”.

Max Bergmann, director of the Europe, Russia, Eurasia program at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. in question Political intervention in Europe to support far-right nationalists was now “a fundamental part of America’s national strategy.”

Bergmann added: “This is not just a speech by a rookie vice president entering a new term. This is US policy and they will try to implement it.” Moreover, he said, it could work: “In a fragmented political environment, a 1-2% change can change elections.”

Bergmann said EU leaders “will have to face the fact that the Trump administration is coming for them politically.” “Do they accept that Trump is financing their political collapse? Or is this starting to cause an incredible amount of friction?”

Mujtaba Rahman of risk consultancy Eurasia Group agrees. “The United States is now officially committed to intervening in Europe’s electoral politics to support Moscow as well as nationalist and anti-EU parties on the far right,” he said.

If it were US policy, the document said, the first election Washington would try to influence would be Hungary’s parliamentary vote in April next year, where it would face a stiff challenge from nationalist, Moscow-friendly incumbent Viktor Orbán.

Minna Ålander from the Center for European Policy Analysis in question The policy document was “really useful. It puts into policy, in black and white, what has been clear all year: Trump and his people are clearly hostile to Europe.”

Ålander said that European leaders “can no longer ignore or explain away the truth”. “Any hope of things returning to the old normal looks increasingly ridiculous. Europe needs to finally seize the initiative and stop wasting time trying to manage Trump.”

Nathalie Tocci, director of the Istituto Affari Internazionale in Italy. in question Europeans were caught up in the belief that Trump was “unpredictable and inconsistent but ultimately manageable. This is reassuring but wrong.”

The Trump administration “had a clear and consistent vision for Europe: a vision that prioritized US-Russia relations and sought to divide and conquer the continent, with much of the dirty work done by nationalist, far-right European powers,” he said.

Tocci stated that these forces “share the nationalist and socially conservative views advocated by Maga, and at the same time work to divide Europe and undermine the European project”, and argued that flattering Trump “will not save the transatlantic relationship”.

Jana Puglierin, senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said Trump remains unstable and the document may not ultimately mean much, but the US clearly wants to “redefine what Europe means to Europeans.”

Puglierin said the aim was to somehow establish that “we are the perverts, we have forgotten our true values ​​and heritage, and therefore the greatness of Europe must be reestablished with the help of ‘patriotic’ parties.”

He said Europeans “need to view the relationship in a much more pragmatic way.” Understand that Trump’s endless flattery, promising to spend 5% of GDP on defense or offering him breakfast with a king won’t cut it.”

Von Ondraza said appeasement “doesn’t work on trade, it doesn’t work on security, and it won’t stop the United States from supporting Europe’s far right.” “The bloc needs to create a strong strategy of its own, supported by a significant majority of members.”