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Typically, European leaders wait for the losing side in any US presidential election to deliver their concession speech before publicly congratulating a winner. Not this time.
The EU leaders planned the game for different electoral scenarios in coordination with each other before the vote. When news organizations called for the race for Democratic candidate Joe Biden on Saturday but incumbent Donald Trump did not budge, they were ready.
“7pm was the agreed time to congratulate the president-elect and vice-president-elect after the result in Pennsylvania, showing respect for the electoral process,” said an EU official.
It shows how little credibility Trump has with European leaders. It was also a way for them to provide each other with diplomatic cover: so that no one seemed rushed or overly circumspect in accepting Biden’s victory. A flurry of tweets duly appeared at the time from the leaders of Austria, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland and more.
Not everyone waited for the agreed moment. Germany’s Vice Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis fired theirs early, a sure way to get more attention. But Taoiseach Micheál Martin stood out, pressing submit a full hour and 21 minutes before the agreed time – a reflection of how close a Dublin friend hopes to be to the new administration, as well as a simple delight in the result.
In general, the outcome of the elections was greeted with relief in Europe. Multilateral cooperation is the native language of the EU, and there is hardly a political area that Trump’s antipathy towards the practice has not touched, from his trade war, to his withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement, to his quest for exclusive access to a Covid. -19 vaccine only for the USA.
Several European capitals have also been overwhelmed by awkward Trump appointments, such as Pete Hoekstra, the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands who led a series of controversies by hosting an event for a far-right Dutch opposition party at the U.S. embassy. . Trump’s success was promoted by supporters as part of a “populist wave” that would sweep across Europe, and many politicians do not regret seeing it fall.
Among the congratulations from the continent, one stood out. The message from British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab came with strange qualifications. He noted that “it was a close contest”, “some of the processes are still developing” and that Trump “fought hard.”
This reflects how the British Brexiteer camp has been isolated by the loss of an ally in the White House, and by who will replace him: an Irish-ID multilateralist who warned before the elections that the peace process in Northern Ireland could not be converted. in a “victim of Brexit”.
But talks with Britain are not the only area in which European leaders are calling for policy changes in their favor. The hopes for the future expressed alongside the congratulations read almost like a to-do list for the president-elect.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg wrote that the United States was necessary to have “the collective strength to meet the many challenges we face, including a more assertive Russia, international terrorism, cyber and missile threats, and a change in the global balance of power with the rise of “China”.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas announced that Berlin would “make specific proposals” that included “dealing with actors like China”, “climate protection” and “the global fight against the Corona pandemic.”
The big question is: with a divided country, a raging pandemic, an economic crisis and possibly no majority in the Senate, can Biden live up to all of Europe’s hopes?
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