Why the EU is still wary of America

ROMANTIC GESTURES are difficult in a pandemic. But America and the European Union are trying to rekindle their old passion. Like many people struggling to maintain a long-distance relationship in lockdown, Joe Biden was planning to settle for a video call with EU leaders on March 25th to lay out his vision of their life together. It was intended as a make-up session after what has been a tricky patch. The Biden camp had naively thought not being Donald Trump would make European leaders swoon. Instead, Mr Biden’s election in November was swiftly followed by the EU signing an investment agreement with China, a move America saw as neither friendly nor helpful. Things started to improve only a few days ago, after the EU joined forces with America to launch sanctions against Chinese figures involved in persecuting Uyghurs.

Teaming up to confront China is likely to be more effective than doing so separately. It might also be safer, if China’s retaliation is diluted. Indeed, the episode has reminded America and the EU why they work together in the first place. The brief period of history in which America was unchallenged is over. Mr Biden is on the hunt for allies because he needs them. For its part, the EU’s geopolitical power depends on its economic size. Its market of 450m rich people is enough to dictate standards for such things as cars and phones; companies sometimes make all their products to Europe’s high standards to avoid the cost of having different versions for different regions. But this so-called “Brussels effect” will fade as the EU’s share of the global economy declines. A strong bond between America and the EU would help both.

Yet the same problems that strained the transatlantic relationship under Mr Trump remain under Mr Biden. Mr Trump’s harrumphing that Europe should spend 2% of GDP on defence was not a personal whim but a longstanding American demand that its allies must honour their promises. The “America first” rhetoric may have gone, but many of its policies are still there, as European grumbling about the country’s failure to export vaccines attests. Anyone who these days suggests the revival of a comprehensive free-trade deal between America and the EU is laughed out of the room, with EU leaders now focused on protecting the bloc’s market rather than opening it up.

Besides that, it is difficult for the EU to have a common front with America on Russia when the bloc cannot manage a common policy on the topic with itself. German business will plough on with Nord Stream 2, a pipeline across the Baltic sea from Russia to Germany, ignoring wails from its neighbours and sanctions from America. Smaller differences can still strain the relationship. Though they share a commitment to liberal capitalism, the two sides still find the time to row about everything from subsidies to aeroplanes to tech regulation. America and the EU may both now have the same goals on, say, climate change. But different means of achieving them will end up causing friction. For the EU, a carbon border tax, which would slap levies on imports from polluting countries, is a key part of its plans; for John Kerry, America’s climate envoy, the policy is a “last resort”.

European politicians are still wary of America, despite the overtures of Mr Biden’s White House. The brush with Mr Trump left some leaders arguing that the EU should keep the geopolitical equivalent of a bag packed, ready to flee like a spouse in an unhappy marriage. An unreliable America triggered a hard look at the EU’s capabilities and a quest for “strategic autonomy”, led by Emmanuel Macron, the French president. In this view, European countries have belatedly realised that they have outsourced existential questions to a larger partner that cannot be relied on. For some in Europe, America is the question. For others, though, it is still the answer. French ideas of European autonomy provoke howls in Poland and its Baltic neighbours, for whom America is the only credible bulwark against Russia. But in areas beyond traditional security policy, the search for autonomy is still popular. EU officials wonder aloud about the euro becoming a proper reserve currency, if not replacing the dollar then at least weakening America’s ability to use its currency to bully European business.

It’s not EU, it’s US

Tight ties with America were easier to justify during the cold war, when the Soviet Union scared nearly everyone. Now voters see the relationship as optional, argues Ivan Krastev, a Bulgarian writer, in a paper for the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR). Although a chunk of European voters always bridled at American influence on the continent, ultimately Europeans knew there was no other option. Today, a transatlantic gap has emerged. For America, China ranks at the top of the list of security concerns, whereas for the EU it is but one of many. In a survey of 11 European countries by the ECFR, most voters would prefer to stay neutral in any conflict between America and China or Russia. In this way, Europe has taken on the role once enjoyed by Japan during the cold war, argues Mr Krastev: an ally, but ultimately a long way from the main theatre of action. In this view, the EU’s quest for more geopolitical clout is not the entry of the EU into great-power politics but an escape from it.

A happier relationship than under Mr Trump is almost inevitable. But it will still be bumpy with Mr Biden, just as it sometimes was under his predecessors even before Mr Trump. What has changed is that the EU wants to be able to make its own decisions on fundamental topics, an ability that becomes especially cherished now EU leaders know that someone like Mr Trump can end up in the White House. Often the EU’s independent aims will be compatible with America’s. Their histories are deeply entwined and they have a fundamentally similar world-view. But they will not be identical and they will increasingly diverge, whether on matters small or big. And if two lovers want different things, they often end up drifting apart. ■

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