(23 January 2017) – According to the Jacques Delors Institute, Donald Trump’s election is at once a risk and a geopolitical opportunity for the EU.
Trump’s victory is an earthquake resulting from the tectonic movements currently destabilising a majority of Western countries and caused, in particular, by the rise of the “emerging” countries and of wars within the Arab-Muslim world.
His victory cannot in any way be called a victory “of the people against the elites” because Donald Trump garnered 2.8 million votes fewer than Hillary Clinton. But it is unquestionably the expression of an “anti-system” vote which can also be found on this side of the Atlantic.
The EU will be able to benefit from it on condition that its member states and its citizens seize that opportunity in a spirit of cooperation and of solidarity rather than by vainly vying for the favours of a partner which is in any case likely to direct its gaze elsewhere in the future even more than it has done in the past.