Yet another EU official has come out of the woodwork urging for the EU to grow up a little bit and to start deciding its policy for itself, rather than simply relying on the USA to tell them how it is.
The EU Commission’s deputy chief, Frans Timmermans, follows a long line of upper level European officials and personalities to make such declarations, including Foreign Affairs official Frederica Mogherini, European Council President Donald Tusk, and the EU Commission’s current president, Jean Claude Juncker, along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, whose words Timmermans appears to be imitating verbatim in this case, and French President Emmanuel Macron, among others.
Anadolu Agency reports:
Frans Timmermans, the first vice-president of the European Commission, on Tuesday warned that this month’s EU summit comes at an “auspicious time”, and Europe must take its destiny “into its own hands”.
“It is the first time since 1945 that an American president has not seen it as an American strategic interest to work hard to ensure a vibrant and unified Europe and a robust Transatlantic relationship,” Timmermans told a meeting of the European lawmakers in Strasbourg. His remarks followed last weekend’s G7 summit.
“This means the EU needs to take its destiny more into its own hands,” he said, adding the EU unity “is built upon the Member States that voluntarily and democratically decided to link their destinies and shape their future together.”
EU heads of state or government will meet in Brussels on 28-29 June to discuss the most pressing policy priorities for the European Union, including how to move forward with the EU’s common asylum system and also to evaluate the progress of the ongoing Brexit negotiations.
They are also scheduled to debate the next EU long-term budget, security and defense, innovation and digital Europe and Eurozone reform.
The Europeans appear to be losing confidence that the US has the best interests of the Europeans in mind concerning global economic and diplomatic policy, most ardently evidenced by Trump’s tariffs and secondary sanctions threats, together with assuming paths which directly put Europe’s best interests far to back burner while directly serving as an affront to Europe’s own security concerns.
The EU appears to be trying to figure its way through this bog in a manner in which they certainly are not accustomed to, having depended on the US to call the shots for so many decades. It’s quite an unwelcome and shocking wake up call for them. Apparently, Trump seems to believe that the Europeans and the rest of the planet have a considerable influence deficit with him, so that no matter what he does, he simply can’t do enough to truly accomplish the wreck of the USS America against the iceberg of isolationist protectionism.
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