Former commissioner recalls recent conversation with Hungarian premier in which he presented himself as a key European contact of newly elected 47th US President Donald Trump.
The EU should have been better prepared for Donald Trump’s return to the White House and Viktor Orbán could be Trump’s contact person in Europe, said Thierry Breton, France’s former European Commissioner in charge of the EU’s internal market.
“I don’t think Europe was as prepared as it should have been,” Breton told Euronews’s Radio Schuman in an interview, referring to the “magnitude” of Trump’s victory in this week’s election. “So, yes, we need to be prepared. And we don’t have one second to lose.”
Breton spoke to Euronews as leaders congregated in Budapest for the European Political Community summit, which is set to be dominated by how Europe should respond to Trump’s victory on Wednesday. The former US president officially won a second mandate on Wednesday morning, after a heated campaign against President Joe Biden and later Vice President Kamala Harris.
During his campaign, Trump rattled European leaders with promises that he would bring the war to an end “in 24 hours”, and impose across-the-board tariffs on all foreign-made products coming into the United States. “We may not like it, but it is a new world we are in now,” Breton said.
The former commissioner also made clear that with Trump in power, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán could be the American President’s main interlocutor in Europe. “When Trump had questions about Europe, he was the one who talked to him and he was the one that Donald Trump was calling to take the pulse of the situation or develop his standpoint,” Orbán told Breton during a recent one-to-one meeting with the Hungarian leader in Budapest, according to the former commissioner.
“We know that he will play an important role,” Breton added. “Some may not like it, but it will be a reality, at least since yesterday, it is a new reality.”
Making sure Europe responds to a Trump presidency with leadership and unity is “absolutely existential for Europe”, he said.
Breton said Europe will need to implement the call, included in the report of former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi, to invest €800 billion per year and establish common debt if it wants to survive the upcoming “giant fight” between the US and China. Draghi’s report, which was published two months ago, called for “regular and sizable issuance by the EU of a common safe and liquid asset to enable joint investment projects” across the Union.
Until recently, Breton was the EU’s powerful European Commissioner in charge of the internal market. He was expected to be re-appointed by France, his home country, in an equally important position.
But last September, he announced his resignation in a tough-worded letter to Von der Leyen, blaming her “questionable governance” for having put pressure on France to submit another candidate to replace him “for personal reasons”.
In the interview, Breton refused to blame Von der Leyen again or judge her proposals for the upcoming European commission. But he opposed von der Leyen’s decision to name six Executive Vice-presidents in her new team. The principle is not included in the EU treaties and it should be “one commissioner, one vote”, he said. The power of a commissioner, he added, relies less in its title than in its access to the commission’s Directorate-generals, which develop and manage the EU’s policy areas. “For the rest, I mean it’s more a light coordination, but that’s another story,” he said.
Breton’s departure caused a stir in Brussels, where he had acquired a strong profile.
At the commission, he stood out as an almost ubiquitous and frequently candid power player, enhancing the bloc’s production of COVID-19 vaccines or ramping up military aid to Ukraine. He didn’t shy away from slamming Big Tech and pushing for more regulation to rein in their excesses.
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