Biden’s great expectations from us in Europe
It is widely recognized on both sides of the Atlantic that by embracing Brexit, abandoning the Paris climate accords, undermining the Iran deal, ignoring his NATO allies, laughing at the UN, the World Trade Organization and leaving the World Health Organization, Donald Trump has done some serious damage to the transatlantic relationship. And for that, it is easy to see why many leaders from the European Union were so happy to see former Vice President Joe Biden be elected as the next US president and expressing their relief that Trump would be leaving the White House.
A lot is being written on what Biden will need to do to reverse Trump’s isolationist course. And yet, the part of American society that welcomed Trump four years ago and those who share his hostile stance towards the EU and other international institutions will not disappear overnight, nor will the anti-EU establishment fervor the outgoing US president inspired in some, including various members of the United States Congress. What’s more important is that the world has also changed over the last four years and the transition in Washington will not be able to reverse that.
This should mean that despite the welcomed change in the White House, Europe has some serious homework to do before Biden can do his part to do whatever repairs that are needed to patch up the relationship. That said, though, the question still remains about what can Biden expect from the EU after his inauguration.
Four years ago, to discuss EU matters as vice president, Biden could have called on the UK’s prime minister to act in close consort with the US, but alas the United Kingdom has left the EU and is no longer useful as an intermediary between Washington and Brussels.
At that time, Biden could discuss Europe with Angela Merkel. As the new US president, he will have to remember that she is stepping down as German chancellor in the second half of 2021. He will also be advised that Emmanuel Macron, his other likely European interlocutor, might not be reelected as France’s president in the spring of 2022.
This hopefully means that he can expect Ursula von der Leyen, who became the EU’s president a year ago, to demonstrate her leadership skills. She and her administration should expect an early visit to Europe by the incoming Biden team. They need to be ready to outline where they stand on security, defense and strategy.
What the Trump administration made clear was that Europe has to become more self-reliant, not least in terms of security and defense. This will not change under Biden and will remain an expected response to long-standing US demands for greater burden-sharing by the EU allies. This particular question has become a source of tension between France and Germany. Biden should expect this sticking point to be resolved both internally, within the EU, and with the US defense establishment.
Biden can also reasonably expect Europe to take on more global responsibilities, especially when it comes to actors disrupting Europe’s security, including Turkey’s ventures against the interests and values of the EU both in its actions at home and in the Eastern Mediterranean against EU members Greece and Cyprus. Biden will expect thorough clarification by von der Leyen about the European Union’s policy towards Turkey as well as on several other fronts that concern the West’s relations with Ankara, including military matters, foreign affairs, the economy, refugees and the rule of law. These discussions need to be based on a candid assessment of the threat posed by Turkey to the EU’s interests and values.
The Americans will expect the EU to discipline its own populist governments, notably those of Poland and Hungary, where the ruling parties of each have been demonizing both democracy and the rule of law for years. The US will also be looking to see if the EU can finally act with one voice on the world stage, especially on the issues of refugees.
Von der Leyen will be expected to prove that, within the block, the EU will not compromise on the rule of law. She will also need to show that Europe is ready to find a balance between refugee quotas and national sovereignty. This issue has consumed the EU for more than two years and Brussels will need to finally prove its readiness to reform the common European asylum system and manage immigration from non-EU countries. The European Union will be expected by Biden to come down hard on the leaders of the Balkans, most of. which have been playing off Russia, which is against the EU.
When it comes to Russia, it will be understood in Washington that the European Union will not be able to counterbalance Russia on its own. Biden should expect Russian President Vladimir Putin to dominate the political scene well beyond 2025 and that tensions between Russia and the West will remain high. Biden should, with a high degree of certainty, expect Brussels to keep in place the sanctions introduced on Russia along for its illegal annexation of Crimea and open support of pro-Moscow separatists in eastern Ukraine through at least 2025.
The US, though it may not expect the EU to have the ability to solve all the problems between Russia and Ukraine on its own. Brussels will need to show that it can provide a credible plan for ending the war, as the Minsk accords brokered between Russia and Ukraine by Germany and France have not been working. Biden may also come to expect that the EU will finally officially support the people of Belarus, where, after months of street protests, neither the dictator nor the protesters are backing down.
Europe, like the US, will willy-nilly struggle with a pandemic-induced recession. The EU and its members will need to challenge their domestic organization and liberalize their economies more to demonstrate that they are prepared to continue on the path of international competition and globalization.
As a good start, Brussels should signal that it is ready to work with the Biden administration on resolving the WTO appellate court gridlock. When it comes to the internal market, the EU has been failing to face up to its economic difficulties. Biden may expect that the pandemic will be testing the bonds of membership as well as the single market. The EU will need to show that it is ready to be universally governed by strict rules limiting subsidies, which have been suspended as governments pour billions into saving their national businesses.
Within the bloc, itself, almost half of all financial aid has been in Germany. Biden will most likely see this as a problem because he was elected, among others, by producers based in a country that has not been so generous and who are competing with German-made goods.
Europe will be delighted by the Biden administration if it opens talks on common rules in the area of future technologies—including AI and digital flows — which are not designed to be protected in the EU’s own markets. He may expect that Brussels will be leading the vanguard of regulations against these future technologies before anyone else does. Furthermore, it will be reasonable of Biden to ask if the European Union can also build and cultivate its own new companies.
As the climate crisis continues to rage, and the rivalry between China and the United States over climate change is likely to continue, the EU has a unique opportunity to become a strategic, global player on this issue. Berlin often lacks the resolve to lead and Biden may not expect this to change. However, with a green economy becoming the new demand of progressive politics, Germany is probably best positioned in Europe to lead on decarbonization. The EU should draw the US and China towards more cooperative frameworks and make the issue of the climate crisis its defining geopolitical issue.
Biden should not keep his expectations too high and should also expect disagreements within the EU on certain aspects, most notably on the final phase of construction on the highly controversial North Stream-2 pipeline. Biden should also know that post-Brexit Britain may complicate matters regarding his relationship with the EU.
Here, in Europe, we may spend our lives concentrating on what they think and expect from us in the US. I believe that even if this is not what Biden expects from Europe, we should reasonably expect this from ourselves, as well as from the EU and from our leaders.
