Brussels and Washington will seal the reconciliation with an intervention by Biden at the European summit | International

The European Union and the United States will seal their final reconciliation this Thursday after four years of disagreements during the era of Donald Trump. The new US president, Joe Biden, has accepted the invitation of the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, to speak on the first day of a European summit that will last until Friday. The reunion will necessarily be by interposed screen, like so many international appointments since the covid-19 pandemic was declared in March 2020. But in Brussels it is interpreted as a warm gesture of transatlantic friendship that marks the beginning of a new stage.

“The medium is the message,” says a diplomatic source, paraphrasing the famous communication theorist Marshall McLuhan. Michel’s invitation and Biden’s acceptance are “a signal from Brussels and Washington about the importance of collaboration between the EU and the US,” adds the same source.

Biden’s brief intervention (scheduled for 8:45 p.m. on Thursday, Spanish peninsular time) coincides with the presence in the European capital of the US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken. And it comes shortly after the US Administration’s climate envoy, John Kerry, was greeted with a red carpet at the European Commission. Washington’s renewed attention to its European allies contrasts with indifference bordering on disdain for the former president, Donald Trump. And it even departs from the attitude of Biden’s Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama, whose interests were concentrated in the Pacific, especially during his first term.

“We know that our return arouses great expectations,” said Blinken in Brussels after attending the meeting of NATO foreign ministers on Tuesday and Wednesday. “We are happy,” added Blinken. And he has assured that “the US is committed to the Alliance, now and in the future.” “I have come to Brussels to consult with our allies because we intend to work with them and our partners whenever and wherever we can,” he stressed.

The two parties recognize that this new harmony does not mean a total coincidence or the end of possible commercial frictions or diplomatic disputes. The vaccination campaigns themselves to contain the pandemic are generating certain tensions due to the risk that US protectionism will hit European production. The European Commissioner for the Internal Market, Thierry Breton, has been working with the Biden Administration for weeks to ensure that transatlantic supply chains remain open and fluid in the pharmaceutical sector.

Washington also does not hide its rejection of the construction of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, promoted by Angela Merkel’s government in cooperation with Vladimir Putin’s Russia. “Germany is one of our close allies, but we have a real disagreement when it comes to Nord Stream 2; it is not a secret for anyone “, has recognized Blinken, that has remembered that for Biden, as before for Trump,” the gas pipeline is a bad idea “. Washington, like many European countries, fears that the new pipeline through the Baltic will reinforce Europe’s dependence on Russian gas.

Among some European countries, on the other hand, Biden’s belligerence against both Russia and China is disturbing. During the electoral campaign, the US president proposed the convening of a “summit of democracies” that, according to his critics, could end in a global division between different political regimes. “The confrontational dynamic and showing teeth is dangerous,” says a community source.

Brussels believes that this geostrategic clash could throw Putin’s Russia into the arms of Xi Jinping’s China, a rapprochement that had already begun and that could be accelerated in the new scenario. The same uneasiness nests on the American side of the Atlantic.