NATO relaunches new transatlantic relations at a leaders’ summit in Brussels | International

NATO will inaugurate the new era in transatlantic relations with the holding of a leaders’ summit on June 14 in Brussels. US President Joe Biden will meet his allies for the first time since his arrival at the White House last January. The meeting at the highest level occurs when the military organization faces the imminent withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan and the deployment of Russian troops on the border of Ukraine. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has stated that the meeting is a “unique opportunity” to strengthen the link between Europe and North America.

The Atlantic Alliance is preparing to turn the page of an era, that of Donald Trump, in which the United States came to threaten to leave the organization. The difficult relations between the leaders of the EU, in particular the French Emmanuel Macron, with former President Trump came to threaten the survival of NATO, which was called into question on both sides of the Atlantic. Macron, inclined to advance towards a European defense, even went so far as to argue that the Alliance was in a situation of “brain death”. Biden’s victory has allowed a quick reconciliation with the visit to Brussels of his secretaries of state, Antony Blinken; and Defense, Lloyd Austin.

Relations within the Alliance remain clouded, however, by the actions of another partner: Turkey. The second largest Army of the Alliance, after the US, challenged the rest of its partners with the purchase of the Russian S-400 anti-aircraft defense system, which deserved sanctions by Washington with Trump still in the White House. Ankara is not going through its best moment with the EU either. The harassment of Greece and Chipe (due to disputes over natural resources at sea), the withdrawal of the Istanbul Convention (against gender violence) and the humiliation of the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, when she remained in In the background to the president of the European Council, Charles Michel, at a summit with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, they have distanced the Turkish president from European leaders.

Stoltenberg has detailed in a statement some of the main points of the agenda that the allies will address on June 14. Among others, the Secretary General of the Military Alliance wants to advance the 2030 agenda, with which he intends to promote a reinvention of NATO, raising its political profile and also turning it into a forum in which the allies can resolve their differences. But one of the biggest underlying challenges is relations with an increasingly disturbing China. From the beginning of his tenure, Biden has shown an interest in addressing this issue jointly with his European partners.

Climate change

Also on the agenda will be the latest “aggressive” actions by Russia, which has carried out its largest military deployment on the border with Ukraine since 2014 and on whom Washington has already imposed sanctions for interfering in the 2020 elections, for organizing a massive cyberattack. and because of Moscow’s supposed offer to the Taliban to attack US troops in Afghanistan. These folders will also be on the table: the threat of terrorism, cyber attacks and emerging and disruptive technologies. Stoltenberg has also announced that they will discuss the security impact of climate change, which has become one of the top priorities shared by Brussels and Washington. Both shores of the Atlantic are preparing ambitious plans to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 50% in the next decade.

After Trump withdrew in 2019 from the Paris Climate Agreement (2015), Biden has again brought the EU and US climate change policies closer together, to the point where Brussels has feared losing leadership in that battle to Washington’s favor. But the relations between both sides of the Atlantic do not stop there. Biden, who participated by videoconference in the last summit of EU heads of state and government, from the beginning wanted to smooth things over not only with the EU, but also with the United Kingdom, and withdrew the tariffs imposed by Trump for the dispute. from Airbus and Boeing. In addition, he began to build an agenda with the EU which includes the search for a global tax on multinationals that circumvent the treasuries through the holes that continue to be tax havens.

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