Europe May Cheer Biden’s Win—But It Threatens Macron’s Grand Project
"Biden’s Europe challenge: Repair tattered transatlantic ties "In a Biden Administration, Changes for the Military Could Start on Day One " "
France is going to have a harder time selling “strategic autonomy” without the foil of the Trump administration to drive it.
By Michele Barbero | November 27, 2020, 1:56 PM
This article is part of The Biden Transition .. https://foreignpolicy.com/projects/election-2020-biden-transition/ , Foreign Policy’s ongoing coverage of how U.S. President-elect Joe Biden builds a new White House administration—and what the new team’s policies might be.
French President Emmanuel Macron reacts to a standing ovation after addressing a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on April 25, 2018. Win McNamee/Getty Images
In many European capitals, Joe Biden’s election victory has been welcomed with a sigh of relief after four years of trouble with President Donald Trump. But alongside the rejoicing over America’s promised return to multilateralism, Biden’s win is laying bare old and new rifts regarding Europe’s role on the world stage.
French officials in particular find themselves wondering to what extent Biden’s presidency will hamper their already difficult push for a more geopolitically independent EU, a pet project of President Emmanuel Macron in recent years, but one which seemed to draw power from Trump’s Europe-bashing and unilateral approach.
“Is the change in the American administration going to see Europeans letting up” on the effort to build greater strategic autonomy?, wondered Macron in a lengthy recent interview .. https://www.elysee.fr/en/emmanuel-macron/2020/11/16/interview-granted-to-le-grand-continent-magazine-by-the-french-president-emmanuel-macron . Macron fleshed out his vision of a Europe that can hold its own in a world dominated by giants like the United States and China. While Macron called the United States “our historical allies,” he also stressed the cultural and geopolitical differences between the two sides of the Atlantic, and made clear that Europe should pursue strategic relevance “for itself” and “to prevent the Chinese-American duopoly.”
Concretely, he argued, this means further efforts to beef up European defense, while tackling technological dependence on the two superpowers when it comes to 5G networks and cloud data storage. He also urged action against Washington’s financial clout, which became apparent when U.S. financial sanctions threatened EU firms doing business with Iran after the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.
A stronger France via a stronger Europe has been a mantra of Macron’s for years.
Coming from Paris, none of this is particularly new. A stronger France via a stronger Europe has been a mantra of Macron’s for years—and has been part of France’s political DNA for decades. The Elysée’s attitude towards NATO, for instance, has been ambivalent since President Charles de Gaulle, who in 1966 withdrew French forces from the alliance’s command—a decision that would be fully reversed only 40 years later.
“If you look at how France has positioned itself in the West from de Gaulle onwards, it’s precisely this: ‘We are an ally of the United States, with which we have common values, but we are no vassals and we must be respected,’” said Christian Lequesne, a geopolitics and international relations professor at Sciences Po university.
The key question for Paris is whether, absent Trump as a foil, its European partners will still embrace the same attitude. In recent years, thanks to Trump’s trade wars, NATO-bashing, and political and economic fights over everything from Iran to climate change, Europe seemed ready to carve out a bigger independent role for itself. French and German officials, incensed by U.S. economic pressure, spoke openly of restoring “economic sovereignty.” In 2018, then-European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker entitled his State of the Union speech “The hour of European sovereignty.” Last spring, German Chancellor Angela Merkel demanded “greater strategic sovereignty for the EU.”
Talk was cheap, though, and that’s clearest when it comes to defense. A European Defense Fund was set up to develop military technology and improve cooperation, but the resources allocated by the latest seven-year EU budget are 40 percent lower than the figure originally proposed by the Commission. The European Defense Agency says that aggregate spending in this area only got back to pre-financial crisis levels last year, with the share of research and technology in defense budgets still substantially lower than it was in 2007. And despite a military cooperation agreement signed in 2018, an integrated European army remains little more than a fantasy at this stage.
Those fault lines have become evident in recent weeks due to an unusually public argument between Macron and German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. In a POLITICO op-ed, she argued that “illusions of European strategic autonomy should come to an end: Europeans will not be able to replace America’s crucial role as a security provider.” Macron said later he “profoundly” disagreed with that view.
In recent years, Europe seemed ready to carve out a bigger independent role for itself.
In some ways, the divisions look deeper than they really are. Last week, the French and German Foreign Ministers penned a joint column acknowledging that the transatlantic partnership must become “more balanced.” Especially in the wake of Trump’s decision to pull thousands of U.S. troops out of Germany, Berlin knows that Europe will have to accept more burden-sharing, as American resources are increasingly devoted to the confrontation with China.
The bigger difference is one of emphasis. Kramp-Karrenbauer insists that Europe needs to boost its military spending and take on some of the United States’ security tasks in its own neighborhood—but as a way to be taken more seriously by Washington and reinforce NATO and trans-Atlantic ties, not to supplant them.
Macron’s problem is that, even if he settled for the German approach, it’s not clear it would materialize. One minister’s point of view is not necessarily the position of the entire government, especially a cobbled-together coalition like the one that governs Germany, noted Hanns Maull of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. Any continuity in Germany’s current approach is further clouded by Merkel’s planned departure from the Chancellery next year.
In that sense, this month’s Franco-German spat could be an attempt by Macron to keep up the pressure, noted Maull, given a general lack of trust in Berlin meeting its commitments on defense spending. While Germany’s defense budget has gone up in recent years, it remains below the nominal 2 percent of GDP threshold that NATO states are supposed to spend on defense .. https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/2020/10/pdf/pr-2020-104-en.pdf . Germany is now estimated to be spending about 1.6 percent of its GDP on defense, compared with France’s 2.1 percent. And when it comes to expenditure in major equipment and related research and development as a share of the total, Germany’s is one of the lowest among NATO members. The German armed forces’ top brass has long been sounding the alarm about the poor state of the Bundeswehr, a situation that Maull described as a “mess.”
That, as much as Biden’s victory, is what makes it seem unlikely Macron will see any big breakthrough in his vision for a more muscular Europe. Further, other EU and NATO members, like Poland and (to a lesser extent) Hungary and the Baltic countries, are even less willing than Germany to pursue strategic independence from the United States.
“The French President is quite isolated,” said Lequesne, of Sciences Po. “Many EU states are still relatively eager to accept American hegemony, and that’s where Macron’s project is faltering.”
Michele Barbero is an Italian journalist based in Paris
"Biden’s Europe challenge: Repair tattered transatlantic ties"
Washington's opposition to a gas pipeline connecting Russia and Germany has never made sense.
By Brenda Shaffer
Workers building pipes in the production hall at the Nord Stream 2 facility at Mukran on Ruegen Islandon in Sassnitz, Germany on Oct. 19, 2017. (Carsten Koall/Getty Images)
February 6, 2018, 2:17 PM
The Donald Trump administration has emphasized its separation from its predecessors in energy policy, but at least one aspect has been entirely continuous: its ardent opposition to the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. The Barack Obama administration opposed the Nord Stream 2 project, and the George W. Bush administration opposed the parallel Nord Stream pipeline before it became operational in 2011. Last week, in Warsaw, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson effectively endorsed those earlier positions by saying that the United States sees the pipeline “as undermining Europe’s overall energy security and stability.” The new pipeline — which, together with the original Nord Stream, will have the capacity to provide a quarter of Europe’s annual natural gas imports — was also specially targeted by U.S. sanctions on Russia adopted by Congress in August 2017.
This stance has always put the United States at odds with Russia — and, for some commentators, this might seem reason enough to endorse the policy. But the fact that American opposition to Nord Stream 2 is bipartisan doesn’t suggest it is right. Ultimately, Washington’s rejection of Nord Stream is a wasteful distraction and a hindrance to American interests.
This is true for a number of reasons. First, the United States needs to carefully choose its battles with its allies in Europe; it should oppose policies of its European allies only on vital issues and where it can win. Here, it is important to understand that Nord Stream doesn’t only have strong support in Moscow, but also in Berlin. Washington is unlikely to succeed in swaying the German government’s decision, since the pipeline and expanded direct gas trade with Russia enjoy broad political support.
In fact, the United States has a history of failing to prevent Russian gas exports to Europe. In 1981, the Ronald Reagan administration sanctioned both U.S. and European companies engaged in building gas pipelines from the Soviet Union to France and West Germany, creating a large rift with Europe. It eventually backed down when it was clear Europe would forge ahead despite American opposition. Current U.S. policymakers should refer to a declassified CIA report from 1982 explaining how Europe sees trade with Russia differently than the United States, and its assessment of the difficulties Washington faces in getting them on board to sanction energy trade. Nothing has changed in Western Europe’s attitude toward trade with Russia since the drafting of that memo.
Second, Europe needs more gas imports from all sources, including Russia. In the last two years, Europe’s gas imports have increased significantly. If economic growth in Europe continues on the current trajectory, together with declining domestic European gas production, gas imports will grow even more. While the portion of renewables in Europe’s fuel mix is growing, coal consumption remains very high, especially as Europe closes more nuclear energy facilities. Germany’s demand for gas is expected to soar after the closure of its last nuclear plant in 2022. Additional gas supplies into Europe will facilitate the much-needed switch from coal to natural gas, with its lower impact on the environment and specifically on climate change. - Additional gas supplies into Europe will facilitate the much-needed switch from coal to natural gas, with its lower impact on the environment and specifically on climate change. - Europe can’t ensure the security of its energy supply by reducing Russian gas supplies. Instead, it needs to increase additional supplies from diverse sources and through building robust infrastructure systems, such as extensive gas storage facilities and interconnectors.
Unfortunately, Russian gas cannot be replaced by and large by U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. Many of the states in Europe most dependent on Russian gas imports are landlocked or otherwise inaccessible to shipping and thus cannot access LNG. Moreover, even states that have built LNG import facilities, such as Lithuania, continue to seek Russian imports due to the significant price gap between LNG and Russian pipeline gas.
Third, Washington’s attempt to pressure Russia to route its gas through Ukraine undermines European energy security. Transit states make gas supply inherently less stable, and it is a legitimate commercial goal for Russian state-owned oil company Gazprom to avoid them where possible. Today close to half of Russia’s gas supplies into Europe transit Ukraine. Gas supplies to Europe have been disrupted a number of times over the past two decades, caught up in the conflicts between Russia and Ukraine, including over Kiev’s lack of payments for its gas imports.
The expansion of the Nord Stream pipeline would indeed mean that the far more stable Germany would replace Ukraine as a transit state for some of Russia’s exports. - The expansion of the Nord Stream pipeline would indeed mean that the far more stable Germany would replace Ukraine as a transit state for some of Russia’s exports. - Indeed, in the wake of the 2014 Russian invasion of Crimea, when policymakers in Washington and Brussels assessed which gas supplies were stable and which were at risk, they counted those delivered by Nord Stream as among those least likely to be disrupted as part of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Germany and Russia possess uniquely interdependent gas trade relations, with Russia providing approximately 35 percent of German gas, and Germany serving as Russia’s largest gas export market (22 percent). Furthermore, German-Russian trade and cooperation is important for stability in Europe and is a cornerstone for building more cooperative East-West relations. Washington should coordinate with Berlin as it plays that role — not try to undermine it.
In reality, further removing Russian energy companies from the Ukrainian market is actually in Kiev’s interest. The loss of the transit fees to the Ukrainian budget can be compensated for by improved energy efficiency (through metering and raising of gas prices), and the reduced presence of Russian companies in Ukraine’s critical sectors will help Kiev to strengthen its sovereignty and reduce corruption. True, Ukraine will lose some geopolitical leverage over Russia through the loss of its transit role, but the United States and European Union can’t fairly lecture Moscow that it must act by market rules in its gas trade with Europe and then go and block a project to promote a geopolitical goal.
In order to obstruct the Nord Stream 2 project, policymakers in Brussels, backed by voices in Washington, are considering demanding that EU energy trade rules be applied not only in Europe but also on the portions of import pipelines located outside of Europe. In the long run, this would hurt Europe’s security of supply and deter producers who seek to export to the European market. EU gas trade laws were designed for trade between consumers and not for gas production and transit projects. Moreover, imposing EU gas trade laws on import pipelines prior to their arrival to the EU could actually enhance Russia’s position in various non-Russian gas supply projects. The EU’s laws would impose third-party access on these pipelines, which would open the door for Russia to join those projects.
For most of the post-World War II period, Washington has been a champion of European energy security, sometimes taking the issue more seriously than Europe itself. However, Washington has been successful when it championed policies in coordination with Europe, and not when it tried to impose a vision on Europe of what was best for it. It should use the same approach for Nord Stream 2 — even if that happens to overlap with what Russia wants.
Brenda Shaffer is a visiting researcher at Georgetown University. Shaffer is the author, with Svante Cornell, of the report “Occupied Elsewhere: Selective Policies on Occupations, Protracted Conflicts, and Territorial Disputes,” published by the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.
And in reality the pipeline is a fait accompli whether the Biden administration supports it or not.
Still there will be opposition to Biden's decision. Even articles with questionable emotive headlines as this one
Biden’s Surrender to Merkel on Nord Stream 2
His support for the pipeline abandoned a bipartisan consensus, got nothing in return, and made the world less secure.
By Kiron Skinner, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and a former director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department, and Russell A. Berman, a professor at Stanford University and a former senior advisor on the U.S. State Department’s policy planning staff.
U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel hold a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington on July 15. SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
July 26, 2021, 5:05 AM
Bipartisan opposition to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was a cornerstone of the foreign policies of both the Obama and Trump administrations, an unambiguous response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the Kremlin’s record of using gas deliveries as a weapon of coercion in Eastern Europe. The recent decision by the Biden administration to reverse the policy of its predecessors and to refrain from sanctioning participants in the pipeline project is nothing but a capitulation to pressure from Germany and a gift to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The damage to American national interest will be profound.
IMSERT: You can bet that last sentence is contentious.
If the administration’s goal was to rebuild trans-Atlantic ties, its embrace of Nord Stream 2 is a clear misfire. Even in Germany, opposition to the pipeline has been growing. The German Green party, which is likely to emerge from the upcoming election as part of the governing coalition, opposes Nord Stream 2. The Green candidate for the chancellorship, Annalena Baerbock, has denounced it as a wedge that divides Europe and a failure for both ecological and geostrategic reasons. The Biden administration has just squandered an opportunity to find common ground with a likely next leader of Germany in order to accommodate Chancellor Angela Merkel during her final months in office.
The decision on the pipeline is having repercussions in the band of countries on or near the eastern flank of the European Union. From Poland’s vantage point, the Nord Stream 2 project has always awakened unpleasant memories of agreements between Berlin and Moscow, bypassing Warsaw. Former Polish Defense Minister Radek Sikorski likened the pipeline to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, which secretly divided up his country between Germany and the Soviet Union, setting the stage for World War II. A recent joint statement from Poland and Ukraine points to the disturbing implications of the pipeline decision having been taken without consultations with the countries affected most directly.
Central and Eastern Europeans are drawing the inescapable conclusion that the Biden administration is prepared to make concessions at the cost of their security. Of course, Western-oriented politicians on the eastern flank of NATO have nowhere else to turn but to Washington—but there is also an anti-Western, pro-Russian opposition in all these countries that will now be emboldened to point out how Washington’s security promises cannot be trusted. The result will be a softening of the post-Cold War, pro-United States sentiment in the countries of the former Soviet bloc. - More dangerously, the lesson for Moscow and Beijing is that sanctions for international aggression will never be sustained for very long. - The willingness of the administration to make decisions of this magnitude without consulting the countries most exposed will not be lost on other parts of the world. Jerusalem and Riyadh, for example, are no doubt already strategizing around the potential of facing a surprise similar to the one that Washington just delivered to Warsaw and Kyiv. The promise that U.S. diplomats will keep them fully apprised of developments in the Vienna negotiations with Iran suddenly seems much less credible. Uncertainty about Washington’s motivations and actions increases prospects for regional instability through direct military action by the opponents of Iran’s nuclear potential. Then there is the urgent matter of the protesters in Cuba. What role, if any, will the Biden administration play in supporting their demands for political and economic freedom and holding the Havana regime to account for its widespread repression?
The joint U.S.-German statement on support for Ukraine, a weak effort to justify the pipeline surrender, offers only vague promises with no binding force. Ukraine remembers how the 1994 Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances, which was supposed to guarantee its independence and integrity in return for giving up its Soviet-era nuclear arms, could not protect it when Russia moved into Crimea and eastern Ukraine in 2014, nor did it motivate the United States to provide effective support. There is scant reason for Kyiv to expect more from the Biden administration.
Nor do German promises to support Ukraine have much credibility. These are promises from the country that prides itself on breaking the promise it made in the Wales Pledge to spend at least 2 percent of gross domestic product on its own and NATO’s defense. Nor did Berlin ever act robustly in the face of a Moscow-sponsored assassination that took place in a Berlin park just a stone’s throw from the Bundestag or in response to the mistreatment of Russian political opponents, most notably Alexei Navalny. No matter how egregious Russian assaults on the international order become, there will always be a pro-Moscow lobby in Germany, the notorious Putinversteher—or “Putin understanders”—who argue for appeasement and accommodation. Kyiv and others in Central and Eastern Europe know that Berlin will always face strong domestic pressure to refrain from acting against Russian aggression. They should not count on the Bundeswehr to defend them.
If, however, the point of Biden’s gift to Merkel was only to heal U.S.-German bilateral relations, then one should ask what the German chancellor gave in return. Apparently not much: The Nord Stream 2 decision has not elicited, for example, an announcement that Germany will meet its NATO defense spending commitments. Nor has Germany adopted a tough stance on China by eliminating the security threats inherent in the utilization of Huawei’s 5G telecommunications technology. Nor has it ended the asymmetry in automobile tariffs that disadvantage U.S. carmakers to the benefit of German imports.
Biden’s foreign policy has achieved none of these well-known American goals. Instead, the administration is walking away from the Nord Stream 2 sanctions having weakened U.S. credibility in Europe and beyond. The lesson learned by Germany is that it can pursue its own inclinations of doing business with dictators regardless of principles and with no consequences from Washington. More dangerously, the lesson for Moscow and Beijing is that sanctions for international aggression will never be sustained for very long. The Biden administration has made the fragile international order even less secure.
Kiron Skinner is a professor of international relations and politics at Carnegie Mellon University, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and a former director of policy planning at the U.S. State Department during the Trump administration. Twitter: @KironSkinner
Russell A. Berman is a professor in the humanities at Stanford University, a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, and a former senior advisor on the U.S. State Department’s policy planning staff during the Trump administration. Twitter: @RussellBermanSF
Not surprised at the two Trump administration connections.
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One last for it's small summary of the objections to the pipeline. This was then
Page 1 NORD STREAM 2: BACKGROUND, OBJECTIONS, AND POSSIBLE OUTCOMES
STEVEN PIFER APRIL 2021
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Nord Stream 2 is an almost-finished natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. The Biden administration opposes it and has come under congressional pressure to invoke sanctions to prevent its completion, in large part because the pipeline seems a geopolitical project targeted at Ukraine. The German government, however, regards the pipeline as a “commercial project” and appears committed to its completion, perhaps in the next few months. U.S. sanctions applied on Russian entities to date have failed to stop Nord Stream 2, raising the question of whether the U.S. government would sanction German and other European companies for servicing or certifying the pipeline. Such sanctions would provoke controversy with Germany at a time when both Berlin and the Biden administration seek to rebuild good relations. The two sides have work to do if they wish to avoid Nord Stream 2 becoming a major point of U.S.-German contention.
[...]
EXAMINING THE OBJECTIONS
Opponents of Nord Stream 2 offer several objections to the pipeline. First, they assert that it would increase Europe’s energy dependency on Russia. Environmental groups in particular worry that Nord Stream 2 could lock in German dependency on gas — use the pipeline because it is there — and slow the country’s move to renewable energy sources. However, even if the pipeline’s construction was halted, Germany and Europe could, and presumably would, import similar volumes of Russian gas via other existing pipelines.
A second criticism is that Europe’s energy purchases from Gazprom, a Russian majority state-owned company, go to fund an aggressive Kremlin that is conducting a conflict against Ukraine, supports brutal regimes in Syria and Belarus, and abuses human rights at home, among other things. When advanced by American critics, however, that claim is largely dismissed by pipeline supporters, who point out the significant increase in U.S. oil imports from Russia in recent years.26
The third objection concerns the possibility that Moscow could use the threat of a gas cut-off to blackmail Ukraine or Poland. That concern remains, though both countries have reduced their exposure to the threat. (While Ukraine buys no gas directly from Russia, the transit gas in its pipelines is important for the system’s efficient operation.)
page 5
The fourth objection also concerns Ukraine. Many critics regard Nord Stream 2 not as a commercial venture to bring energy to Europe but as a geopolitical project targeting Kyiv. Nord Stream 2 would cut transit revenues to Kyiv and cause an increase in domestic gas prices in Ukraine. The end of Gazprom dependency on the Ukrainian pipelines would remove a restraining factor on Russia’s already aggressive behavior toward Ukraine.
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