In a political club made up of 27 member states, there is always an election coming up somewhere. But this year the most consequential vote for EU members always felt like the one taking place across the Atlantic.
Even if all of the diplomats, politicians and EU officials who run Brussels would never admit it, the possible return of Donald Trump to the White House has loomed over most of the decisions they have taken for months.
Trump has promised across-the-board tariffs on imports that would almost certainly trigger a trade war with the EU. He has suggested that he may pull military and financial support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, and possibly retreat from the Nato military alliance.
The EU has for years been wringing its hands about how it needs to spend more on defence and ramp up its military strength. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine only heightened anxiety about Europe needing to be able to account for its own security, without the help of the US.
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Economically as well, “competitiveness” has become the favourite buzzword of EU politicians and officials. What they mean by that is that Europe has to find a way to stop slipping further and further behind the US and China, by finding hundreds of billions of euro from somewhere to fund ambitious plans for the future.
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As far back as the first Trump term, French president Emmanuel Macron was calling for Europe to stand on its own two feet, both economically and when it comes to defence. Fast-forward several years and the Macron project in France lies largely in tatters and chancellor Olaf Scholz’s German coalition government is also politically adrift. When the UK walked out, the union lost one of its biggest economic and military powers, something the remaining 27 members rarely acknowledge. The EU seems just as vulnerable to the shock waves of Trump’s victory this week as it was to his surprise win in 2016.
The election of Trump will be likely to embolden populist leaders both in and out of power. Far right Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, who has most closely positioned himself beside the next Republican president, had been openly banking on a Trump victory. Hungary holds the six-month rotating presidency of the council of the EU, a deal-making role charged with pushing policy negotiations forward. The slogan Orban’s government picked for its time in the chair? “Make Europe Great Again.”
Italian right-wing prime minister Giorgia Meloni has cultivated ties with those in Trump’s orbit, such as tech billionaire Elon Musk. Meloni, the leader of Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy), a party with neo-fascist roots, has surprised other EU leaders over the past two years by swimming in the political mainstream on foreign policy, including showing steadfast support for Ukraine. Whether she feels confident to now change tack and try to push EU politics towards positions closer to her natural ideological home will be very interesting to see.
[ European Union prepares two-step trade plan to tackle Donald TrumpOpens in new window ]
What exactly Europe should do to brace itself for the next four years will dominate the discussion when national leaders meet on Thursday and Friday. Taoiseach Simon Harris is first travelling to Budapest for a meeting of the European Political Community, a relatively new forum that brings together the heads of government from the EU and other European countries, including the UK, Ukraine, the Balkan states, Turkey, Norway and others.
Then on Friday the 27 EU leaders will sit down together for a summit in the Hungarian capital. A draft declaration being prepared for leaders is to call for “decisive action” to make Europe more economically competitive. “Business as usual is no longer an option,” it states.
The draft statement, seen by The Irish Times, said member states would work to find some (unspecified) way to increase the amount of money the EU has to throw around. In that context the more fiscally conservative countries such as Germany and the Netherlands are very opposed to any talk of the EU taking on common debt to write future cheques.
The latest version of the working text commits to taking concrete steps to create a new “savings and banking union” in the bloc by 2026. This is the new name being given to long-stalled capital market reforms, which are aimed at making it easier for investment to move across borders in the EU. “The competitiveness challenges we face will require significant investment, mobilising both public and private financing,” the draft statement reads. “The need for a unified response has never been more compelling.” You can say that again.