European Council President Antonio Costa and the German government have lambasted a new US national security strategy that paints Europe as a troubled, declining power that may one day lose its usefulness as an ally to Washington.
The remarks on Monday from the European Union’s leading economy and one of its top officials delivered a stinging rebuke to the National Security Strategy released on Friday by the administration of US President Donald Trump.
The 33-page document contains scathing criticism of the continent, claiming it is facing the “prospect of civilisational erasure” due to migration, scorning it for “censorship of free speech” and suppression of anti-immigration movements, and suggesting that the US may withdraw the security umbrella it has long held over it.
The stoush over the strategy, playing out as Washington ramps up pressure on Ukraine to agree to a plan to end the war with Russia, reflects what EU leader Costa said was a “changed” relationship between the US and Europe.
“We need to focus on building a Europe that must understand that the relationships between allies and the post-World War II alliances have changed,” Costa said at the Jacques Delors Institute, a think tank in Paris.
In response to the strategy document’s comments on free speech, Costa warned, “There will never be free speech if the freedom of information of citizens is sacrificed for the aims of the tech oligarchs in the United States.”
Costa strongly criticised allegations that free speech is being censored in Europe and said only European citizens can decide which parties should govern them.
“What we cannot accept is this threat of interference in Europe’s political life. The United States cannot replace European citizens in deciding which are the right parties and the wrong parties,” Costa said.
“The United States cannot replace Europe in its vision of freedom of speech,” he noted, adding, “Our history has taught us that there is no freedom of speech without freedom of information.”
