Jonathan Ernst
Three years into the presidency of Donald Trump, a new survey has found that Europeans have rapidly lost trust in the United States as an ally, and would like to see a more self-reliant European Union that stands up to America.
According to the survey of 60,000 people across 14 EU countries, conducted by the European Council on Foreign Relations, less than one in 20 Europeans trust Donald Trump. After years or erratic foreign policy and Trump’s public denigration of NATO, the US-dominated security umbrella over Europe, most Europeans no longer believe they can rely on the United States to guarantee their security.
“Our polling confirms that Trump is toxic in Europe, and that this is feeding into distrust of the U.S. Security Guarantee,” says report author Susi Dennison, director of the European Power programme at ECFR. “The fact that Europeans are split on whether defense resources should go to the EU or NATO suggests that they no longer have the confidence in the alliance they once had.”
According to the survey, Europeans place more trust in the EU than their national governments to protect their interests from global powers like America and China. The one exception was Poland, where citizens trust the United States over the EU to defend them from Russia.
However citizens say they are disappointed in the EU’s efforts so far to stand tall on the world stage. They are sceptical of the EU’s current ability to protect their economic interests in trade wars, with less than 20% saying they feel their country’s interests are being well protected from aggressive Chinese competitive practices.
Most of the survey respondents said they want the EU to be a stronger actor on the world stage than it has been so far.
"While being underwhelmed by the EU’s foreign policy’s performance in recent years, Europeans are ahead of their politicians in understanding the need for a stronger Europe in a world where it could be pushed around by ever more aggressive and nationalistic superpowers,” says Dennison. “They don’t need to be sold on the idea of European defence – they need to be sold on whether Europe can deliver”
Only 8% of those polled said they think the EU should side with Beijing rather than Washington in the event of a U.S.-China conflict. The overwhelming desire of publics in every member state is to stay neutral – a position held by nearly three quarters of voters in Germany and over 80% of voters in Greece and Austria.
Digital sovereignty
The survey was published on the day the EU Commission’s new president, Ursula Von Der Leyen, unveiled the portfolios for her cabinet of commissioners - a signal of her political priorities for the next five years.
Von der Leyen stressed the theme of European sovereignty as she unveiled her team, showing she is perhaps listening to the voters of Europe more than national governments are.
“The world needs more Europe, the world is calling for more Europe,” Von der Leyen said. “Therefore, we have to stand up.”
Her decisions on how to organise her cabinet of commissioners reflect an appetite to take on the U.S., China and Russia in all kinds of areas, from trade to energy to the military.
Her decision to elevate Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager to executive vice president for digital affairs signalled an intention to take on the American tech giants like Google, Facebook and Microsoft even more aggressively. Vestager has already launched investigations against the US tech giants for anti-competitive practices, and now that she will have a dual role overseeing tech and competition, those investigations are expected to ramp up.
There has been growing concerns in Europe over its reliance on technology from America, whether it be search functions and news reliant on Google, or GPS reliant on the American military. Von der Leyen has said that Europe needs to develop its own in-house alternatives. "We need to work on our technical sovereignty” she said when announcing the decision to combine the digital and competition portfolios.
Energy sovereignty
She also signalled the EU will display a new assertiveness when it comes to energy. She has chosen the Estonian Liberal politician Kadri Simson as energy commissioner. As. Former Soviet state, Estonia is dependent on Russia for gas and is one of the loudest voices in the EU, along with other Eastern European countries, on decreasing the bloc’s dependence on Russia and ensuring energy security by diversifying sources of supply.
It could spell bad news for Nord Stream II, the controversial gas pipeline being constructed from Russia to Germany. Eastern European countries, including Estonia, have opposed the pipeline on energy security grounds. But Germany is pushing hard for it.
Von der Leyen has appointed her other executive vice president, Frans Timmermans, to be in charge of the ‘European Green Deal’. Timmermans is expected to aggressively push for tougher action on climate globally to match what the EU is doing. He has already heavily criticised the United States for pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, and EU diplomats have been so successful in their efforts to isolate the U.S. on the climate issue that some expect America may not actually leave the pact in November 2020 as planned.
His most controversial tool in the toolbox will be a planned carbon border tax to be levied on goods coming from more polluting areas of the globe like America and China, in order to prevent “carbon leakage” from industries moving out of Europe to escape the tough regulation. Beijing and Washington are sure to push back hard against this tax as illegal under global trade rules.
Defense sovereignty
The European Commission has already drawn up plans for a “defence union” of EU countries that will coordinate military spending, procurement and procedures. The next step may be to coordinate military actions. It would be separate from NATO and, significantly, not include the United States in any way.
Washington has raised objections to this plan, saying it undermines NATO. The Pentagon also doesn’t like the fact that the plan calls for EU countries to purchase military equipment from each other rather than from the United States, where most of Europe’s military hardware comes from today.
Earlier this year the U.S. Department of Defence sent a letter to the EU’s foreign affairs chief saying it is “deeply concerned” that the new European Defence Fund will limit the involvement of non-EU countries. This would mean “a dramatic reversal of the last three decades of increased integration of the transatlantic defence sector”.
“It is clear that similar reciprocally imposed US restrictions would not be welcomed by our European partners and allies, and we would not relish having to consider them in the future,” the letter said in an implicit threat. The Trump administration has demanded that the U.S. play a central role in the EU’s new military coordination - seemingly not understanding the point of the exercise.
Von der Leyen has created a new department for Defense and Space within the European Commission to work on the EU’s new defense activities, to be presided over by another vice president, Margaritas Schinas.
Schinas’s original title, in draft plans, was Commissioner for Defense. This title was changed before this week’s unveiling, however, to the rather more confusing “Vice President for Protecting Our European Way of Life”.
Protecting from what, exactly, is not entirely clear. He will also be dealing with migration. But European voters have indicated that among the many threats Europe faces, some are coming from big outside powers like the United States and China. The survey respondents indicated they trust the EU more than their national governments to protect them from these big powers.
It remains to be seen whether Von der Leyen and her team can give EU citizens the security that they want, following an EU election in May this year that saw strong majority support for pro-EU parties. The proof will be in the pudding when it comes time for the next EU election in 2024.
“They should remember that before the vote three quarters of Europeans felt either that their national political system, their European political system, or both, were broken” the survey report concludes. “Unless Europe creates emotionally resonant policies in the next five years, an electorate convinced that the political system is broken is unlikely to give the EU the benefit of the doubt a second time.”
