“It seems it is a very hard negotiator, that’s a bad news for us”. This January 20, 2020, on the sidelines of the Davos Forum in Switzerland, a smiling Donald Trump welcomes the new president of the European Commission. But once the doors are closed, the appointment goes very badly. As ex-commissioner Thierry Breton told him before the European Parliament, the American president threatens not to come to the aid of Europe if she is attacked. “You Germans, you owe me 400 billion, because you have not paid for your defense,” he attacks, during what remains his only face-to-face with Ursula von der Leyen.
To date, the former Minister of Defense of Angela Merkel had only one contact, on the phone, with the re -elected president – in early November, to congratulate him – while several European leaders including Emmanuel Macron, L ‘Italian Giorgia Meloni or the secretary general of NATO, the Dutchman Mark Rutte, have already met him in person. In the general opinion, this promises to be much more complicated for her. “If Donald Trump calls, it’s potentially negative; if he does not call, too,” worries a French source. German, woman, reputed to be very close to Joe Biden and, moreover, leader of an institution that the Republican Execre, Ursula von der Leyen leaves with few assets in her sleeve. “Trump was traumatized by the moral lessons of Chancellor Angela Merkel, it left lasting traces,” sighs a European diplomat.
“When Biden was elected, it was the party!”
Since its arrival at the end of 2019 in Berlaymont, the headquarters of the Commission, the Christian Democrat leader has since arrived at the Berlaymont, nevertheless gave numerous wages of Atlanticism. Too even, in the eyes of his detractors. “When Joe Biden was elected, it was the party! It was absolutely necessary to find a positive agenda,” said an insider. His chief of staff, the German Björn Seibert, who worked in several American universities, was held out perfectly with Jack Sullivan, the national security advisor of the Democratic President.
This bond of trust will also earn him to be very precisely informed about the march towards the war in Ukraine. “Result, when it broke out, our services were already ready to draw the sanctions,” recalls a senior commission official. But this tropism can also explain reluctance to go to the balance of power with the United States. When in 2021 Washington imposed export restrictions on the vaccines against the covid, it is Thierry Breton who had to go up to the front. And, in August 2022, when the Democratic Administration draws inflation Reduction Act, the major subsidy program that hovers a heavy threat to the European economy, Ursula von der Leyen hastened to greet its signature on social networks .
While she had spoken of “relief” at the time of Joe Biden’s victory in 2020, she will therefore have to operate a delicate turn on the wing in front of her successor. “Our teams are in contact. This is the way it usually happens, she evacuated on January 29 by responding to the press. Sooner or later, there will undoubtedly be a visit and an intensification of the contacts “. But no white smoke for the moment and in Brussels, some are already wondering. “I have the feeling that they speak with people who are certainly in the team of Donald Trump, but who do not really have access to the president,” sighs a high -ranking diplomat. “He prefers to talk about Europe with Orban”, persifishes another of our interlocutors.
He will necessarily have to deal with the European Commission
The former Minister of Defense of Angela Merkel remains essential in relations between the two banks of the Atlantic. If Donald Trump wants to reduce the trade deficit with the European Union, he will necessarily have to go through Brussels where the Commission manages the commercial policy of the 27. “He does not like it, so then? He will have to do with it. is he that we do not like and we have no choice either “sums up a diplomat. And if the speech of Ursula von der Leyen in Davos, after his absence for severe pneumonia, did not print in the general public, he pleasantly surprised in the circles of initiates. “We thought that she had finally seen the light!”, We breathe in Paris.
“European companies in the United States employ 3.5 million Americans. And one million additional American jobs depend on trade with Europe,” said the boss of the Commission, before announcing in multiplying in In the coming months alliances with other regions of the world than the United States, including China. “We will be pragmatic but we will not give up our principles,” she also launched towards Washington. “A proactive speech, this will have to be followed quickly from actions,” said the French Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Noël Barrot. In any case, on January 30, Donald Trump had still not imposed a customs tax on the EU. Even if he is slow to train the European leader’s telephone number, he may still hear his first messages.
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