When their two-day gathering in Budapest ended on Friday, there was a clear sense among leaders of EU countries that Europe needed to get its act together, given it now faces a second Donald Trump presidency.
As French president Emmanuel Macron put it: In a world of carnivores, Europe could no longer remain a herbivore.
In leaders’ discussions behind closed doors, the point was made that last time around the EU got through relatively okay, although there was a recognition that Trump’s second term will be different.
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His first was characterised by chaos, infighting and efforts from some inside the administration to restrain the US president’s worse impulses. The belief is Trump will take office again in January with a much better understanding of how to pull the levers of executive power.
For the EU that may mean he follows through on his idea for sweeping tariffs on all foreign imports, possibly sparking a trade war. Even worse, he may decide to stop the huge flow of US military and financial aid sustaining Ukraine in its war with Russia.
So leaders at the EU summit in Budapest this week were always going to be preoccupied with what to do now. It is understood the two right-wing populists around the table, Italian prime minister Giorgia Meloni and Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban, told other leaders they needed to better understand how Trump’s mind worked.
During a press conference on Thursday, Orban was in top form. The nationalist leader has been Trump’s biggest ally in Europe, travelling to his Mar-a-Lago court earlier this year and openly banking on him winning. Despite previously saying he would pop several bottles of champagne, Orban ended up drinking vodka to celebrate the Republican candidate’s victory this week, he told reporters.
The Hungarian leader hopes a reordering of global power during Trump’s second term may tilt European politics closer to his more Kremlin-friendly world view, particularly on his pursuit of a settlement in the Ukraine war.
Rather than Orban, Meloni is better placed to become a key interlocutor between the EU and a Trump administration. The hard-right Italian prime minister has been careful not to alienate the leaders of other EU countries, or European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen.
Ireland will be one of the most exposed countries if the US slaps big tariffs on all goods coming from Europe. It is understood Taoiseach Simon Harris told his counterparts the bloc should organise a summit with the United States next year, aimed at preventing things getting messy between the two powers.
The agenda of leaders’ discussions on Friday was how to make the European Union more economically competitive. Former European Central Bank head Mario Draghi joined them in the room, having recently written a report for von der Leyen to try to answer that question.
His conclusion was that the EU needs to push through significant internal changes that for years have gone nowhere, because of disagreements between member states. Speaking on his way into the meeting, Draghi said “the sense of urgency today is greater than it was a week ago”.
A joint statement agreed by leaders at the summit committed to cutting down on bureaucratic EU regulation of businesses and finding ways to free up significant amounts of private and public funding for investment.
Much of the statement reheats ideas that failed to get off the ground before, such as the creation of an EU-wide market for capital. The fact Europe is now in the crosshairs of a hostile US president may increase the appetite of member states to follow through this time around.
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