POLICY PAPER: Rebuilding the Transatlantic Relationship – Transatlantic Policy Forum in Review

It was noted that the pandemic has not brought about systemic change but has instead accelerated and exacerbated existing trends. Both the US and the EU see the pandemic furthering disagreements and on both sides of the Atlantic by causing rise to internal political divisions on how to tackle the pandemic. One of the big lessons of this global crisis is that collaboration is crucial. Not even powerful countries, such as the US, can tackle it on their own. Now more than ever, it is time to move beyond competition and focus on strengthening international cooperation, otherwise we risk a success of non-democratic actors seeking to undermine democracy and rule of law.

1. The next US administration needs to continue to rebuild European trust in America as a reliable strategic partner and rebuild democratic values through strong leadership;

2. Coordinate on creating joint economic recovery efforts to help rebuild transatlantic relations post-Covid;

3. Further develop existing multilateral systems in place to help bolster economic, trade and security growth vis à vis Three Seas Initiative and look to renew outdated ones;

4. Work on infrastructure in terms of military mobility as well as of cyber space and technologies;

5. Rethink the 2% threshold on defense spending and further invest in European joint capacity building, cohesion and consistency;

6. Develop a standard policy under which security considerations come before economic ones in order to lessen the danger of global dependencies;

7. Restrengthen ongoing work on diplomacy and dialogue, as these cannot be stopped because of major disruptions, such as a pandemic or elections;

8. Work on mitigating the impact of disinformation and propaganda, both foreign and domestic, on our citizens;

9. Develop a joint US-EU approach towards Russia and China as security threats; and

10. Work commonly in the area of energy (and climate) security (ex. by reinforcing LNG export-import between the US and the EU).