Working With the Biden
Administration: Opportunities for the EU+How Europe Can Tackle Influence
Operations and Disinformation
Summary: With U.S. President Joe Biden in office, the EU
and the United States must find ways to repair the relationship and seek common
ground from which to address the global shifts and challenges of the coming
decades.
Rosa Balfour
JANUARY 26,2021
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
1. Getting Back on Track in Eastern Europe and the Western Balkans
ROSA
BALFOUR, THOMAS DE WAAL
2. A Call for EU-U.S. Complementarity in the Middle East and North Africa
MARC
PIERINI, PIERRE VIMONT
3. What Can Europe Offer Biden on Security and Defense?
ERIK
BRATTBERG
4. Realigning the Transatlantic Relationship on China
LIZZA
BOMASSI, PAUL HAENLE
5. Toward a Strengthened Transatlantic
Technology Alliance
ANU
BRADFORD, RALUCA CSERNATONI
6. Redesigning the Transatlantic Relationship to Face the Climate Crisis
OLIVIA
LAZARD
7. Protecting Democracy in a Post-Transatlantic Era
RICHARD
YOUNGS
8. Still the Indispensable Partnership
DAN
BAER
The
relief and enthusiasm at the change in U.S. administration has been palpable
across Europe. The time has come for the United States and Europe to find ways
not only to repair their relationship but also to seek common ground from which
to address global shifts and challenges. Unprecedentedly, European Union (EU)
member states have not squabbled to get Washington’s attention, nor have they
waited for the new U.S. leadership to set the agenda to reinvigorate the
transatlantic relationship. Rather, the Europeans have capitalized on the
optimism of change to propose initiatives for collaboration and renew
diplomatic efforts.1
The damage inflicted on relations between the United States and
Europe and the brittle international context warrant an ambitious reform agenda
to be shared by the two sides—and beyond. Even if EU leaders abandon the temptation of lazy
transatlanticism and accept there is no return to the past, strategic clarity
and a willingness to commit to a greater international role are still lacking.2
In light of the interests and goals of the new U.S.
administration, this collection of essays takes a hard look at how Europe can
design its foreign policy priorities and how the EU and the United States
converge or diverge in addressing them. The series also offers short- and
longer-term proposals for a more cooperative relationship. Rebuilding trust and
working together can lay the foundations for hard conversations on issues where
the EU and the United States will diverge. And even where they converge, the
balance of responsibility for finding solutions will have to tilt toward
Europe, which can no longer escape the need to provide stability to its
neighborhood, beef up its security capacity, and shape its global policies.
The EU needs to be proactive in defining its international
goals while being pragmatic and realistic in turning them into actionable
policies. The union must also be unambiguous about its divergences with the
United States and build dialogue to talk about such differences. The next, more
benign phase of relations with the United States can help the EU’s coming of
age in international politics.
THE ENDURING RELEVANCE OF
THE TRANSATLANTIC RELATIONSHIP
The transatlantic relationship has been structurally
drifting. European views of the United States and its leadership have been in
steady decline over time.3 During the administration of former U.S.
president Donald Trump, opinions plummeted to the extent that Germans are split
between the United States and China as their preferred partner.4 Strategically,
the United States has moved its gaze toward Asia, while Europe oscillates
between transatlanticism and a quest for greater independence from its
traditional ally,5 encapsulated
in the debate about Europe’s strategic autonomy.6
The United Kingdom’s departure from the EU complicates
the diplomatic landscape and its multiple formats—such as the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO), the Group of Seven (G7), the Group of Twenty (G20),
and the European Three (E3) of France, Germany, and the UK—while London and
Brussels compete for Washington’s attention. Should Europe’s disunity continue,
Washington will turn selectively to Paris, Berlin, London, and other capitals.
Yet, the partnership between the United States and the
EU—even without the UK—remains the most integrated and interdependent
relationship for both sides from all points of view: economically, financially,
digitally, militarily, and culturally. Americans and Europeans may have become
more curious about the rest of the world, but the connections across the
Atlantic are solid in terms of economic and financial integration, education,
scientific and cultural cooperation, and people-to-people contacts. The new
U.S. administration and the EU share similar worldviews.
Europe and the United States also stand together in
sharing major challenges for the coming decades. Against the backdrop of the
climate crisis and the technological revolution, the post-pandemic world will
impose on Europe and the United States the responsibility not only to promote
health as a global common good but also to counter the impact of the economic
recession on lower-income countries.7 At home, both are embracing a green and digital
economy as a means of renewal.
U.S. President Joe Biden’s agenda includes healing the
divisions of polarization and America’s democratic shortcomings,8 which
the storming of the Capitol so dramatically exemeplified. European states and
the EU, too, are beset by democratic backsliding and the rise of
authoritarianism and populism.9 The United States and Europe will need to
vigorously reform their democracies to counter the attractiveness of the
authoritarian model, which has been promoted through rising geopolitical
competition, and fireproof their relationship from further populist backlashes.
Both Europe and the United States will need to deal
with world turmoil, disruptive actors, and the relative decline of the West in
a fraying international system. And both will need to sell their foreign
policies at home if they want public backing for ambitious international
change.
This shared agenda provides plenty of opportunities to
give new value to cooperation across the Atlantic. From whatever angle one
looks at the future, the EU needs to step up its international engagement and
take responsibility. Transatlanticism and strategic autonomy are not mutually
exclusive.
THE QUICK FIXES
The U.S. pledge to return to multilateralism and
diplomacy presents abundant opportunities to repair some of the damage done
during the previous administration and make strong statements about the
enduring relevance of U.S.-European relations and NATO.10
Fighting the climate crisis has acquired a new impetus
thanks to Biden’s executive order that brought the United States back into the
2016 Paris Agreement on climate change. The space for collaboration is wide at
the multilateral level, including on finding new ways to work with a drifting
UK to prepare the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, to be held in
Glasgow. Europe’s uninterrupted climate diplomacy could also help the United
States reengage in climate dialogues, for instance with China.
On global public health, the fight against the
coronavirus and reform of the World Health Organization give the EU and the
United States a unique opportunity to demonstrate responsibility and solidarity
in vaccine distribution and prevent the politicization of health by China and
Russia in the developing world. Other stagnating international institutions,
such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the World
Trade Organization, and NATO, can also get a boost.11
Europeans can act swiftly to create a context to
enable a U.S. return to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, despite the scorched-earth
policy of the last weeks of the Trump administration. Biden has rejoined the
accord but has also signaled a commitment to working on nonproliferation and
arms-control initiatives—areas where European states can be supportive
THE LONG GAME: CONVERGENCE AND DIVERGENCE BETWEEN PARTNERS
Three principles can guide the EU through the
complexity of cooperating with the United States on key strategic dossiers.
First, the EU should leverage its strengths, which include its role as a global
norm and standard setter, its economic might, and its diplomatic network of EU and
member state representations around the world and in global institutions. The
goal should be to make the EU an attractive partner for cooperation.
Second, and relatedly, the EU should be flexible and
more nimble with respect to formats for cooperation, recognizing that EU
mechanisms are burdensome and complicated for third parties. Multipolarity and
the rise of powers outside the West, including middle powers, have contributed
to creating an international environment that favors more fluid and changing arrangements
alongside older alliances. The E3 is the only format for systematic cooperation
with the UK. Alongside the G7 and G20, other proposals are floating, such as a
Democracy Ten or a Technology Twelve, which could include a handful of EU
member states.
Working with both the United States and the UK—the
EU’s two closest partners, despite the derailments of Trump and Brexit—will
require ingenuity for the EU to be united while operating in flexible formats.
If the EU is represented at international gatherings by its largest member
states, it needs to find ways to compensate the smaller EU countries through
inclusive debates and improve its capacity for unity, which is so often
lacking. The E3 group worked well by putting the EU’s foreign policy chief in
charge of the negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program.
Third, the EU needs to avoid siloed approaches to
policies and focus instead on spaces for compromise with the United States that
may cut across policy competencies. Indeed, aside from the quick fixes on which
the EU and the United States can reach easy agreement, most other dossiers on
which the two sides stand close to each other—from fighting the climate crisis
and terrorism to engaging with the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, Turkey, and
Iran—will call for convergence as well as trade-offs.
In Europe’s Eastern and Southern neighborhoods,
formerly areas of EU-U.S. cooperation, recent haphazard and destabilizing U.S.
engagement has weakened EU traction and permitted regional actors to shape an
explosive environment mired by escalating tensions. China, Israel, Russia,
Saudi Arabia, and Turkey share the goal of weakening European and U.S.
influence and upending the region for their own purposes—and have been
extremely successful at doing so through military and hybrid means.
U.S. diplomacy can lean in more heavily here, but it
will want Europe to keep Russia at a distance and provide leadership in the Eastern Mediterranean and
Libya. Similarly, the transatlantic allies will converge on the need to
maintain the relevance of NATO, but Washington will expect European NATO
members to take on a greater share of the defense burden. Smart European contributions can
include strengthening NATO-EU cooperation, building capacity to counter hybrid
and cyber threats, cooperating on emerging technologies, and bringing the
United States into fledgling EU defense initiatives.
Technology is
an area where engagement with the United States requires careful crafting and
possible compromises. Between the ambition of technological sovereignty and the
authoritarian threat of China’s techno-surveillance model, the space for
EU-U.S. cooperation is broad but fraught with differences over privacy, data
regulation, and taxation of tech giants.
The most formidable challenge will be the relationship with China, which embraces vast policy
areas—climate, technology, human rights, security, and trade—where
transatlantic divergences abound. The EU's Comprehensive Agreement on
Investment (CAI) with China, negotiated at the very end of 2020 without any
prior discussion with the new administration, indicates the gulf between the
two sides of the Atlantic with respect to China and does not bode well for
improving relations with Washington. This said, better coordination among EU
member states on the China file would help persuade Washington that forcing
partners to make a binary choice between it and Beijing does not always pay
off.
THE U.S.-EU RELATIONSHIP
AND THE WEST
The United States has been framing global politics
under the rubric of the U.S.-China rivalry. Europe and Western countries in
other regions may prefer a more nuanced approach. The way to achieve the
pursuit of global goods—be it by mitigating the climate crisis or
by promoting democracy—is through new and fluid
relationships, rather than by relying on alliances.
The EU and the United States stand close to each other
in sharing similar challenges and worldviews. Together, they have formed the
backbone of the West, with Europe as the junior partner. Calls for stronger EU
autonomy are met with skepticism from those on both sides of the Atlantic who
see it as detrimental not only to the unique EU-U.S. relationship but also to
the West in general at a time of challenge from rival civilizational models.
Circling back to enduring alliances is seen as the best defense against the
assault of rising antagonists.
This defense should not be to the detriment of the
openness of the U.S. and European democratic systems, however imperfect and in
need of reform they may be. The West’s weakness lies in the privilege it used
to enjoy thanks to its global hegemony, which was maintained so long as the
West provided the dividends of peace and prosperity to the rest of the world.
That world is long gone, and the transatlantic relationship needs to reflect
the shifting balance of power away from the West. Looking forward, whatever
level of cooperation is achieved between the EU and the United States, it needs
to be inclusive and open to engagement and partnership with countries around
the globe.
Carnegie Europe is grateful to the U.S. Mission to the
EU for their support of this publication.
NOTES
1 “Joint
Communication to the European Parliament, the European Council, and the
Council: A New EU-U.S. Agenda for Global Change,” European Commission, December
2, 2020, https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/joint-communication-eu-us-agenda_en.pdf.
2 Rosa
Balfour, “Europe’s High Expectations for a U.S. President Joe Biden,” November
10, 2020, Carnegie Europe, https://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/83191.
3 Richard
Wike, Janell Fetterolf, and Mara Mordecai, “U.S. Image Plummets Internationally
as Most Say Country Has Handled Coronavirus Badly,” Pew Research Center,
September 15, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/09/15/us-image-plummets-internationally-as-most-say-country-has-handled-coronavirus-badly/.
4 Jacob
Poushter and Mara Mordecai, “Americans and Germans Differ in Their Views of
Each Other and the World,” Pew Research Center, March 9, 2020, https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2020/03/09/americans-and-germans-differ-in-their-views-of-each-other-and-the-world/#closer-ties-with-russia-and-china.
5 Annegret
Kramp-Karrenbauer, “Europe Still Needs America,” Politico, November 2,
2020, https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-still-needs-america/;
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, “How Berlin Can Help Biden—and Itself,” German
Marshall Fund of the United States, November 19, 2020, https://www.gmfus.org/blog/2020/11/19/how-berlin-can-help-biden-and-itself.
6 “La
doctrine Macron : une conversation avec le Président français” (in
French), Le Grand Continent, November 16, 2020, https://legrandcontinent.eu/fr/2020/11/16/macron/;
“Shared Vision, Common Action: A Stronger Europe” (EU Global Strategy),
European External Action Service, June 2016, https://eeas.europa.eu/archives/docs/top_stories/pdf/eugs_review_web.pdf.
7 Karen
Donfried and Wolfgang Ischinger, “The Pandemic and the Toll of Transatlantic
Discord,” Foreign Affairs, April 18, 2020, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-04-18/pandemic-and-toll-transatlantic-discord.
8 Joseph
R. Biden, Jr., “Why America Must Lead Again,” Foreign Affairs,
March/April 2020, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-01-23/why-america-must-lead-again.
9 Rosa
Balfour, “Why Populism Can Survive the Pandemic,” Carnegie Europe, July 15,
2020, https://carnegieeurope.eu/2020/07/15/why-populism-can-survive-pandemic-pub-82293.
10 “Joint
Communication,” European Commission.
11 “NATO 2030: United for a New Era,” North
Atlantic Treaty Organization, November 25, 2020, https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2020/12/pdf/201201-Reflection-Group-Final-Report-Uni.pdf.
End of
document
Rosa
Balfour
Rosa Balfour is director of Carnegie Europe. Her fields of expertise
include European politics, institutions, and foreign and security policy.
@ROSABALFOUR
