HOW THE EU SHOULD DEAL WITH THE U.S. ?

If the EU and U.S. President-elect Donald Trump are going to work together, both sides need to understand what the other is looking to accomplish. This will be key to a positive future of transatlantic relations. The best way to get on the same page is to sit down and listen and to get the best understanding of each other’s perspective and then use that as the roadmap of moving ahead.

The EU would do well to do that as the new administration comes together and develops its philosophies.The EU should take on a serious leadership role and start preparing an agenda of practical things that can be achieved with the U.S. be it on NATO, on Russia, on migration, on trade, on how to deal with the Middle East and Turkey. EU leaders and ministers can’t afford to keep talking, for hours on end, about issues of existential importance for Europe without coming up with any serious proposals that can be implemented. The elements of the agenda the EU must set out are clear enough. On security, the countries grouped in both the EU and NATO need to reassert their commitments to collective security, and invite the United States to do the same within the Alliance. Security is set to be among Europe’s greatest concerns, given the uncertainties in Ukraine, Syria and the wider Mediterranean and Caspian regions. On the economic front, trade in goods and services between Europe and America is worth US$1.5 trillion a year, and transatlantic investment stands at $2.5 trillion annually.

One  word of advice: The EU should refrain from public criticism, highlighting the points of agreement and trying to get as close as possible to the key decision makers in the new administration. The one productive thing that Europe might do, while it is waiting to see what comes next, is the thing that seems most out of reach: to move toward even greater continental unity. The prospect of a Europe largely sidelined on questions of its own security ought to force it to put aside current differences in order to deal with serious concerns. But greater unity in Europe would need a good deal of political courage, particularly in the face of a populist upheaval that could overturn the current leaderships in a number of countries. It would require member states to move from entrenched positions on issues such as Greek debt, Italian spending, and the migrant crisis. It would require a more adult and flexible approach to Brexit, one that doesn’t seek to punish but comes at it with the goal of maintaining European strength. Europe should build up its capacity to defend itself which it should have been doing all along and pushing for strength in unity which ought to have always been the goal.