European Union officials unveiled a blueprint for cooperation with the United States during President-elect Joe Biden’s administration intended to help “design a post-corona world” — and offset China’s growing power and influence.
“We are taking the initiative to design a new transatlantic agenda fit for today’s global landscape,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday. “When the transatlantic partnership is strong, the EU and the U.S. are both stronger. It is time to reconnect with a new agenda for transatlantic and global cooperation for the world of today.”
The proposed agenda features the mainstays of policy discussions featuring American Democrats and Western European allies, such as climate change and efforts to “reinforce the World Health Organization” as an alternative to President Trump’s withdrawal from the organization. Those priorities headline an agenda that von der Leyen hopes will mark an era of congeniality between Biden’s team and Brussels.
“In recent years, our relationship was tested by geopolitical power shifts, bilateral tensions and retreats to unilateral policies,” the EU document states. “With a change of administration in the US, a more assertive Europe and the need to design a post-corona world, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to design a new transatlantic agenda for global cooperation — based on our common values, interests and global influence.”
That unity has its limits, however, in part due to uncertainty about how to manage the most significant geopolitical shift undertaken during Trump’s administration — the intensifying U.S. rivalry with China.
“As open democratic societies and market economies, the EU and the US agree on the strategic challenge presented by China’s growing international assertiveness, even if we do not always agree on the best way to address this,” the EU agenda acknowledges, before touting the recently launched EU-U.S. Dialogue on China as a means to close that gap. “Working closely with the US to align our strategic objectives and support democratic progress in Asia will be essential.”
Chinese Communist officials have sought to use economic clout to prevent the U.S. and Europe from closing ranks against Beijing’s rise, but Western anger over the regime’s mishandling of the coronavirus pandemic and its crackdown on Hong Kong has galvanized at least some political opposition in Europe. Still, China sees new EU data showing that China has eclipsed the U.S. as the EU’s top trading partner this quarter as a testament to that strategy.
“The close comprehensive strategic partnership between China and the EU are intertwined with each other’s industrial chain,” according to the Global Times, a state-run media outlet. “The data also discredits some media reports that Beijing’s hopes of using Europe as a counterweight to the US have faltered.”
The EU agenda raises the possibility that China’s confidence on that score might prove to be misplaced.
“Today, our combined global power and influence remains unrivaled,” the EU document states. “Our joint commitment is essential in a world where authoritarian powers seek to subvert democracies, aggressive actors try to destabilize regions and institutions, and closed economies exploit the openness our own societies depend on.”
Attempts to establish that “joint commitment” proceeded in fits and starts during the Trump administration, in part due to European anger over the president’s hostility to certain multilateral initiatives that leading European powers regarded as essential, such as the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accord, and disputes over trade policy.
“With our concrete proposals for cooperation under the future Biden administration, we are sending strong messages to our U.S. friends and allies,” EU High Representative Josep Borrell said. “Let’s look forward, not back. Let’s rejuvenate our relationship.”
