July 1

Germany took over the 6-month rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union from Finland.

July 1

In a national referendum, Russians voted overwhelmingly to pass constitutional amendments that would allow President Putin to stay in power until 2036.

July 1

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said that his government would not apologize for Dutch involvement in the slave trade, despite calls from three Dutch political parties to issue a formal apology.

July 1

The European Commission presented draft negotiating frameworks to the Council for EU accession talks with Albania and North Macedonia.

July 5

Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković’s ruling Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ) secured a clear victory in national elections. On July 3, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had controversially appeared in a promotional video for HDZ alongside other politicians in the European People’s Party (EPP).

July 6

French President Macron presented his new government to the public, including a new Prime Minister, Jean Castex, who had taken over the role from Édouard Philippe on July 3.

July 6

Members of the European Parliament Trade Committee voted in favor of provisions that would expand the scope of acceptable retaliation measures used in ongoing trade tensions between the European Union and the United States. These include allowing trade restrictions on U.S. services and intellectual property rights and giving the European Union the power to take counter measures without an official WTO ruling.

July 7

The European Commission launched a platform in partnership with the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance to monitor restrictions of fundamental rights introduced since the pandemic in 162 countries, including all EU member states and the United States.

July 7

The United States officially withdrew from the World Health Organization. The withdrawal will take effect on July 6, 2021.

July 8

German Chancellor Angela Merkel traveled to Brussels, marking her first trip abroad since the onset of the pandemic. Her visit included a meeting with the European Parliament, an EU presidential conference, and a bilateral meeting with European Council President Charles Michel.

July 9

Irish Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe was elected as the next Eurogroup president by Eurozone finance ministers, winning out over Spain’s Nadia Calviño and Luxembourg’s Pierre Gramegna.

July 10

European Council President Charles Michel presented a revised budget for the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) and coronavirus recovery initiative. His proposal included €1.074 trillion for the MFF, a decrease from the Commission’s proposed budget, as well as €750 billion for the recovery fund, including €500 billion in grants.

July 10

French President Macron and German Chancellor Merkel held a videoconference with Kosovo’s Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti and Serbia’s President Aleksander Vucic ahead of continued talks in Brussels to normalize relations between Kosovo and Serbia.

July 10

President Erdogan announced that the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul would become a mosque again following a Turkish court decision that ruled the building’s 1934 conversion into a museum illegal. President Erdogan would lead Friday prayers at the Hagia Sophia on July 24.

July 12

In runoff presidential elections, incumbent Polish President Andrzej Duda narrowly defeated his challenger Rafał Trzaskowski, the mayor of Warsaw, 51.03% to 48.97%. Given widespread voting irregularities, particularly among members of the Polish diaspora and in nursing homes, supporters of Trzaskowski challenged the results. On August 3, however, the Polish Supreme Court validated the election result.

July 13

At EU’s Foreign Affairs Council meeting, foreign affairs ministers discussed EU-Turkey relations in light of recent developments in the Eastern Mediterranean and Libya.

July 13

Speaking with Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte ahead of a European Council summit on July 17, Chancellor Merkel warned that Europeans would need a “massive” recovery fund as part of the long-term budget, rather than one that is “reduced to dwarf size.” She further underlined that Germany would stand by Italy’s side in the budget negotiations.

July 14

Prime Minister Johnson ordered Huawei equipment to be purged completely from Britain’s 5G network by 2027, after the United States imposed sanctions on the Chinese company and banned suppliers from selling it chips made using U.S. technology without a special license.

July 15

German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier defended Germany’s response to China’s new security law, warning that those who seek a tougher course with China are not considering the economic consequences. He stressed that he had “always been convinced and […] still believe[d] that change can be achieved through trade.”

July 15

The European Union’s General Court overturned a 2016 European Commission decision ordering Ireland to reclaim more than €13 billion in back taxes from Apple. The 2016 decision arguing that Ireland’s tax arrangement with Apple amounted to an illegal subsidy was a central part of the EU’s effort to tax big tech companies.

July 16

North Macedonia’s Social Democrats, led by incumbent Prime Minister Zoran Zaev, narrowly won parliamentary elections, the country’s first since it opted to change its name to North Macedonia, paving the way for NATO membership and removing a hurdle for EU accession talks. The Social Democrats struck a coalition agreement with the Democratic Union for Integration, the country’s main Albanian party and secured Zaev another term as prime minister.

July 16

The U.K.’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and Canada’s Communications Security Establishment released a report warning that Russian hackers from the group APT29 were targeting organizations in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States involved with the development of a coronavirus vaccine. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security endorsed “the technical detail and mitigation advice” provided by the report.

July 16

The European Court of Justice struck down the EU-U.S. Privacy Shield agreement governing the secure transfer of data across the Atlantic due to concerns that the agreement did not sufficiently protect EU citizens’ data from being accessed by the U.S. government.

July 18

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, President Macron, and Chancellor Merkel issued a joint statement urging foreign actors to halt their involvement in Libya and respect the arms embargo, threatening sanctions for those who would not.

July 20

The United Kingdom suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong and announced that it would extend to Hong Kong an arms embargo that had been in place against China since 1989. Both moves came in response to the new security law providing China with sweeping powers over Hong Kong.

July 21

After a marathon European Council summit beginning on Friday, July 17, EU leaders agreed to a new long-term budget and coronavirus recovery plan, envisioning €390 billion in grants and €360 billion in loans for the recovery plan and €1.074 trillion for the new budget. The deal was a landmark in European integration as it marked the first time that the European Union would take on joint debt on a large scale in financing the COVID-19 recovery plan. The rule of law mechanism in the budget was left deliberately vague.

July 21

The U.K. House of Commons Intelligence and Security Committee released a report on Russian influence operations and U.K. democratic processes. Among other conclusions, the report detailed the slow British response to Russian influence operations, the complexity of the relationship between British intelligence agencies that prevented one organization from taking responsibility, and the ability of Russian elites with ties to President Putin to exercise influence in the U.K. through political organizations or donations.

July 21

Turkey announced that it would conduct seismic surveys south and east of the Greek island of Kastellorizo in an area claimed by the Greek government. In response, the Greek armed forces were placed on alert, and Greek Defense Minister Nikolaos Panagiotopoulos told U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper in a call that Greece was prepared to “defend its sovereign rights if necessary.”

July 23

The chairs of foreign affairs committees from Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, the European Parliament, Germany, Latvia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and the United Kingdom issued a statement urging China to rethink its imposition of a new security law on Hong Kong, calling the law a violation of the 1984 Sino-British Joint Declaration and the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

July 26

Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to an expanded cease fire, due to take hold just after midnight on July 27. Both sides also agreed that the implementation of the Minsk peace plan was a failure. The Ukrainian military reported that pro-Russian separatists had already violated the ceasefire hours after it went into force.

July 27

President Trump announced his decision to nominate Col. Douglas Macgregor as Ambassador to Germany. The pick was controversial because Macgregor had been a vocal critic of Chancellor Merkel’s refugee policy, saying that Muslim migrants were coming to Europe “with the goal of eventually turning Europe into an Islamic state.”

July 28

In response to China’s new security law, European foreign ministers agreed to further limit the export of “sensitive equipment and technologies for end-use in Hong Kong,” citing fears that they could be used for “internal repression, the interception of internal communications or cyber-surveillance.”

July 30

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced that the Polish constitutional court would examine whether the Istanbul Convention, a 2011 treaty aimed at combating violence against women, violated Poland’s legal order. The move came days after Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro announced the Poland would withdraw from the treaty, calling it “harmful” and “contain[ing] elements of an ideological nature.”

August 1

An estimated 20,000 people gathered in Berlin for a protest against Germany’s measures to halt the spread of the coronavirus. Organized by a group called Querdenken 711, the demonstration brought together thousands from across Germany, including conspiracy theorists, neo-Nazis, LGBTQ activists, and others in violation of social distancing measures.

August 3

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper announced that the United States and Poland had concluded negotiations on an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement, which would send 1,000 more U.S. troops to Poland, in addition to the 4,500 U.S. troops already stationed there.

August 4

A massive explosion on the docks in Beirut killed at least 78 people and damaged large parts of the city. The explosion was later linked to a large amount of ammonium nitrate that was ignited by exploding fireworks also stored nearby. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen later promised the deployment of European firefighters, a military vessel capable of medical evacuation, teams equipped to detect hazardous materials, and €33 million in financial aid.

August 5

Senators Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Ron Johnson wrote a letter threatening a Baltic port operator with “crushing” sanctions for its support of the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

August 6

Greece and Egypt signed an agreement delineating the borders of their exclusive economic zones (EEZ) in the Eastern Mediterranean. The two countries had been in talks about the borders of their EEZs for 15 years but came under pressure to complete negotiations due to a border agreement signed by Turkey and the Libyan government in November 2019.

August 7

President Trump issued executive orders banning transactions with the Chinese companies ByteDance – parent company of TikTok – and WeChat, citing national security concerns. The ban would come into effect on September 20.

August 9

In Belarusian presidential elections, incumbent Alexander Lukashenko officially won 80.23% of the vote, while opposition candidate Svetlana Tikhanovskaya received 9.9%. The opposition disputed the election result. Protests broke out across the country after the polls closed, leading to clashes with the police and 3,000 arrests.

August 10

A Turkish vessel, escorted by warships, arrived in waters claimed by Greece to conduct seismic research south of the island of Kastellorizo. The Greek foreign ministry responded by urging Turkey to halt its “illegal actions,” while government officials announced that Greek flotillas were also in the area calling on the ship to leave.

August 10

The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control warned of a resurgence in COVID-19 cases in several countries “as a result of physical distancing measures being relaxed” and urged countries experiencing a second wave to reintroduce or reinforce existing social distancing measures.

August 11

President Putin announced that Russia had approved a COVID-19 vaccine for public use, even though clinical trials had not yet been completed. Putin claimed that his daughter had been given the vaccine and said that while it would be voluntary, it could be rolled out to teachers and health care workers within the month.

August 12

In a speech to the Czech Senate, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said that the threat posed by China “is in some ways much more difficult” than that posed by the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Pompeo called on Czechs to stand up to Chinese economic coercion as they did against Soviet oppression.

August 14

In an emergency summit, EU foreign ministers agreed to sanction those responsible for the crackdown in Belarus following the contested presidential election on August 9. With tensions escalating in the Eastern Mediterranean, in particular following the deployment of French naval forces, EU foreign ministers also reaffirmed their support for Greek and Cypriot sovereignty and called on Turkey to deescalate.

August 16

Following days of protests and violent police crackdowns, thousands of protestors gathered in Minsk to demand the resignation of Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko. In response, Lukashenko organized a counter-protest, telling them “If you destroy Lukashenko, it will be the beginning of the end for you.”

August 19

Following a European council summit, European heads of state condemned the August 9 Belarusian election as “neither free nor fair” and agreed to sanction those responsible for the brutal police crackdown on protestors and election fraud.

August 20

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was hospitalized under suspicions that he was poisoned while flying from Tomsk to Moscow. President Macron and Chancellor Merkel offered Navalny asylum and medical aid. Navalny would arrive in Berlin for medical treatment on August 22.

August 21

The warring factions in Libya led by Fayez Al-Serraj and Aguila Saleh announced a ceasefire and plans to hold elections. EU High Representative Josep Borrell welcomed the announcement and called for “all foreign interference” in Libya to end.

August 21

The seventh round of talks on the future relationship between the European Union and the United Kingdom ended in stalemate as the two sides could not reach agreement on rules regarding state aid and fisheries. EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier lamented the lack of progress and warned that a deal did not seem likely, while David Frost, the British chief negotiator, blamed the European Union for the delays. The next round of talks was scheduled for September 7.

August 24

The Charité hospital in Berlin confirmed that Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny had been poisoned. Chancellor Merkel and German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas called for Russian authorities to “clarify this act down to the last detail — and in full transparency.”

August 26

EU trade commissioner Phil Hogan resigned following a scandal surrounding his attendance at a golfing society dinner in defiance of Irish coronavirus restrictions. Hogan had been entrusted with navigating trade tensions with President Trump and negotiating an investment deal with China. Von der Leyen later announced that Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis would become interim trade commissioner until a replacement for Hogan could be found.

August 28

Hungary announced that it would close its borders to non-Hungarian citizens, with exceptions for Czech, Polish, and Slovakian travelers. With numbers of COVID-19 cases on the rise in Europe, Hungary was the first country to re-close its borders.

August 29

EU High Representative Borrell called for a new election in Belarus, ideally under the supervision of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Clamping down on press access, the Belarusian government cancelled press accreditation for journalists working for foreign media, including AFP, ARD, BBC, Reuters, and RFE/RL. Protests would continue over the weekend.

August 29

Approximately 38,000 people participated in anti-lockdown protests in Berlin, with some being arrested by the police for violating social distancing measures. A group of far-right protestors waving imperial German Reichsflaggen broke through police barriers and attempted to storm the German parliament.

August 31

The head of the Czech senate, Milos Vystrcil, said “I am a Taiwanese” in a speech expressing his support for Taiwan, echoing President John F. Kennedy’s 1963 “Ich bin ein Berliner” speech expressing solidarity with the people of Berlin. State Councilor Wang Yi, China’s top diplomat, called the speech a “public affront” and said that Vystrcil had “crossed the red line.” Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová later indicated her support for Vystrcil, while German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that Europe would not countenance threats.

September 2

Chancellor Merkel announced that Alexei Navalny had “without a doubt” been poisoned by novichok, according to the results of tests done by a German military lab and demanded that the Russian government provide an explanation. EU High Representative Borrell called the poisoning “an assassination attempt,” while NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the news about the use of a military-grade nerve agent made it more urgent that the Russian government conduct a transparent investigation. An open letter signed by more than 130 MEPs called for targeted sanctions in response to the poisoning.

September 7

President Trump said he would support Germany pulling out of a pipeline project with Russia over the alleged poisoning of Alexei Navalny but claimed Berlin may be too “weakened” in terms of energy security to do so. President Trump has previously criticized the project for engendering German and European overreliance on Russian gas.

September 7

Ahead of the next round of Brexit negotiations beginning on September 8, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that if the United Kingdom and the European Union fail to reach an agreement by October 15, there would be no trade deal. Two days later, Northern Ireland Secretary of State Brandon Lewis confirmed that the U.K. would violate the terms of the Withdrawal Agreement Prime Minister Johnson struck with the European Union in 2019 in the areas of state aid and Northern Ireland customs. He said that the bill would “break international law in a specific and limited way.”

September 8

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced that acting Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis would permanently retain the role of Trade Commissioner pursuant to Phil Hogan’s resignation. Von der Leyen also announced that Mairead McGuinness, MEP would become Commissioner for Financial Stability, Financial Services, and the Capital Markets Union, a post previously held by Dombrovskis.

September 9

Fires destroyed the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, displacing the more than 12,000 inhabitants – mostly Afghan refugees.

September 14

Chancellor Merkel, European Council President Michel, Commission President von der Leyen, and Chinese President Xi Jinjing met for a “quadrilogue” video conference in place of the postponed Leipzig summit. Following the mini-summit, Merkel admitted that European perspectives on China were not yet fully unified even though she, along with Michel and von der Leyen, were able to move Europe closer to a united foreign policy vis-a-vis China.

September 15

In a speech at the European Parliament plenary, EU High Representative Borrell told MEPs that the European Union did not recognize Alexander Lukashenko as president of Belarus.

September 16

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered her first State of the European Union address to the European Parliament. In the speech, she articulated her Commission’s intent to help build a world Europeans want to live in, pushed for more decisiveness in foreign policy through qualified majority (instead of unanimity) voting, and laid out plans to give the European Union greater capacity to respond to health crises in light of the suffering caused by the coronavirus.

September 16

In the aftermath of the fire that destroyed the Moria refugee camp, Germany decided to take 408 refugee families – over 1,500 people – in addition to at least 100 unaccompanied minors.

September 20-21

Italians voted in a constitutional referendum to reduce the number of members of parliament to 600 from 975 – a proposal from the populist Five Star Movement, which otherwise underperformed in regional elections.

September 21

In an open letter, over 50 former presidents, prime ministers, foreign and defense ministers from 20 NATO countries, and two former NATO secretaries-general called for disarmament and asked their countries to sign the 2017 U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

September 21

After Cyprus blocked EU sanctions against Belarus by tying them to restrictive measures against Turkey, EU High Representative Borrell admitted at a news conference that the European Union’s credibility was “at stake” due to the bloc’s failure to impose sanctions against Belarus.

September 22

After a four-year hiatus, Greece and Turkey agreed to start the 61st round of exploratory talks within 14 years in an attempt to resolve conflict in the Eastern Mediterranean.

September 23

The European Commission released its revised proposal for migration policy. Despite placing an emphasis on solidarity, the plan does not include the controversial mandatory redistribution of asylum seekers across the bloc, focusing instead on protecting external borders and accelerating returns of rejected asylum seekers.

September 23

President Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power if he loses the election in November, saying “We’re going to have to see what happens […] You know, I’ve been complaining about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster.”

September 24

In an address to the U.N. General Assembly, Cypriot President Nicos Anastasiades said that Cyprus is committed to reunification talks with estranged Turkish Cypriots, specifying however that “For the talks to resume with realistic prospects for success, it is imperative to create an environment which will be conducive for constructive and good faith negotiations… not under conditions of intimidation or threats.”

September 24

In a letter to EU High Representative Borrell, the EPP group in European Parliament expressed alarm at reports in the Spanish media about a “semi-official high-level mission sent by you to Caracas, to negotiate with [Venezuela’s President] Nicolás Maduro.” The group stressed their belief that “this decision represents a substantial weakening of the political positions held by the European Union with respect to the Venezuelan regime.”

September 25

The European Council approved €87.4 billion in financial support to 16 member states in the form of EU loans under SURE, a temporary EU instrument to mitigate unemployment during the COVID-19 crisis – an “expression of Union solidarity.”

September 27

In a referendum, Swiss voters rejected a proposal to limit migration from EU member states and terminate an existing agreement on free movement of people.

September 27

Violence erupted between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, leaving hundreds dead. The ethnic conflict dates back to 1988, when the region sought independence from Azerbaijan, and has resulted in over twenty-five thousand deaths and the displacement of a million people over the past three decades. Turkey’s and Russia’s involvement, backing Azerbaijan and Armenia respectively, would compound the threat to regional security.

September 28

In a speech, European Council President Charles Michel defended the European Union’s unanimity requirement for foreign policy decision-making, saying that it “leads to constant efforts to weld the member states together.”

September 29

In a debate with students at the University of Vilnius, Lithuania, President Macron called on Europe to take on a more independent geopolitical role and avail itself of its reliance on American weapon systems. “We cannot accept to live in a bipolar world made up of the U.S. and China,” he stressed.

September 29

The United Kingdom and Canada imposed sanctions in the form of travel bans and asset freezes on Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and other officials over accusations of the Belarusian government’s rigged elections and violence against protestors. They were one of the first Western countries to do so, acting before the European Union.

September 29

President Trump and his Democratic opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, faced off in the first of three planned presidential debates. President Trump would test positive for COVID-19 on October 1, raising concerns that he was contagious on the debate stage.

September 30

The U.K.’s Internal Market Bill, which would override aspects of the Withdrawal Agreement struck with the European Union and break international law, passed the House of Commons by a margin of 340 to 256. 20 Conservative MPs, among them former Prime Minister Theresa May, abstained.

September 30

The European Union released its 2020 Rule of law report – part of the European Rule of Law Mechanism – which assesses developments across the bloc, in addition to examining the situation in each member state and identifying key problems and best practices.

Between July 1 and September 30, 2020, President Trump spoke on the phone with French President Macron three times (July 20, August 7, August 14), Turkish President Erdoğan three times (July 14, August 12, August 26), Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis twice (both on August 26), Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán once (September 10), and Russian President Putin once (July 23). He did not speak with European Commission President von der Leyen or European Council President Michel in that time frame.

We track Trump’s phone calls with the leaders of France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, whether they have spoken or not, as well as other calls with European leaders of which we are aware. The White House stopped releasing readouts of the president’s calls with foreign leaders in July 2018. If we’ve missed a conversation, please give us a ring. Sources: U.S. Embassy in Libya and press reports.

We began our quarterly polling on the state of U.S.-EU functional relations (overall relations, political relations, security relations, and economic relations) and bilateral relations with key member states in September 2018, midway through President Trump’s first term. Since then, our pool of experts has remained remarkably consistent in its assessment of the health of these relations. Trans-Atlantic relations, viewed either functionally or as bilateral relationships, have been in bad shape, yet persisted above a critical range where political life support would be required.

 

 

Trans-Atlantic security relations have endured a series of shocks: from contentious accusations, like when President Trump called Germany a “captive of Russia” at the July 2018 NATO summit, to surprising reversals, like the United Kingdom’s decision to ban Huawei from its 5G network after extensive U.S. pressure. Yet, our experts’ scores never strayed higher than 4.7 out of 10, nor lower than 3.5, indicating that relations were consistently bad but not yet in critical danger. Assessments of political relations between the United States and Europe followed a similar line. Despite such low points as President Trump canceling a trip to Denmark over an apparent snub of his musings regarding buying Greenland, or Europeans constructing an alternative trade mechanism, INSTEX, in an effort to uphold the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran, political relations have also consistently tracked an average of 3.4 out of 10 – never dipping below 3 and never rising to 4.

 

 

U.S. bilateral relations with key European partners have shown a similarly stubborn rigidity since our first iteration of the Scorecard. Despite a small boost in U.S.-U.K. relations following the December 2019 parliamentary elections that gave Prime Minister Johnson a mandate to, in his words, “get Brexit done,” an outcome that President Trump supported, U.S.-U.K. ties deteriorated back to the norm over the subsequent months.

 

Next to U.S.-Russian relations, U.S.-German relations have consistently been the most damaged during the Trump era. In keeping with the frosty relationship between President Trump and Chancellor Merkel, U.S.-German relations sputtered along steadily at around 3.3 or 3.4 out of 10. President Trump’s surprise summer 2020 announcement of a redeployment of U.S. troops away from Germany proved, however, that the relationship was not immune to further deterioration, briefly causing our experts’ rating to drop to 2.7.

 

Yet even in cases where President Trump has expressed an affinity for a country’s leader, as with Russia’s President Putin or Turkey’s President Erdoğan, foreign policy realities and diverging agendas have continued to mar U.S. bilateral relations with both countries. That said, President Trump’s courtship of Presidents Erdoğan and Putin may have salvaged the U.S.’s bilateral relationships with Turkey and Russia from foreign policy near-death experiences, like the ongoing drama involving Turkey’s acquisition of Russian S-400 missiles, or the string of high-profile Russian-linked assassinations or assassination attempts in Europe over the past two years.

 

At their current pace, trans-Atlantic relations look set to end 2020 in much the same place that they began when we first ran our survey: a steady state of bad with little prospect for significant improvement. However, this result also reveals that the traditional trans-Atlantic linkages run so deep that not even the violent shocks and policy reversals of President Trump’s first (and perhaps only) term could damage them much further. But, as many of the experts in our survey noted, the current tensions could become a permanent feature of the relationship should President Trump win re-election. In which case, our theory of trans-Atlantic relations being durable enough to resist most shocks without breaking might be tested.

Center on the United States and Europe Director Thomas Wright lays out events, issues, and potential developments to watch for in the months ahead.

 

I am delighted to share with you the eighth edition of the Trans-Atlantic Scorecard, a quarterly evaluation of U.S.-European relations produced by Brookings’s Center on the United States and Europe, as part of the Brookings – Robert Bosch Foundation Transatlantic Initiative.

 

We are releasing our October scorecard on the eve of a historic U.S. presidential election, with the pandemic worsening on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe, President Macron has declared a state of emergency and imposed a curfew in several major cities, while Chancellor Merkel and Germany’s state minister presidents agreed to restrictions on social gatherings and domestic travel. In the United States, President Trump’s long-standing aversion to public safety measures surrounding the pandemic resulted in a coronavirus outbreak at the White House, throwing the final weeks of the campaign into disarray.

 

A few points from this iteration of the survey are worth highlighting.

 

Overall, U.S.-European relations have remained deeply strained but steady, with slight ticks upward or downward in only a few areas. Facing a historic presidential election – the potential outcome of which could set the United States and Europe on dramatically different paths – a “wait-and-see” mood combined with a sense of anxious optimism regarding the prospect of a Biden administration has descended on the trans-Atlantic relationship.

 

This iteration of the Scorecard takes a retrospective look at the impact the past four years have had on trans-Atlantic relations. Overall, through two years of Scorecards, a stubborn malaise has characterized the trans-Atlantic relationship throughout the Trump era, both in times of diplomatic crisis and rare moments of unity.

 

Our survey pool was divided over the effects of President Trump’s approach to defense spending and his ambiguous posture toward the U.S.’s commitment to NATO’s Article 5. 50% agreed that Trump’s behavior had led to improved European defense capacities, or at least accelerated existing trends, while 40% disagreed and 10% remained neutral. Roughly 68% thought that the damage caused to multilateral cooperation on key global challenges could be reversed if Trump were not reelected. Finally, roughly 68% of our respondents thought that Europe and the United States had converged significantly over the past four years in how they view China, perhaps despite the best efforts of the Trump administration.

 

As we look ahead to the last months of 2020, the U.S. presidential election is key. While observers had prepared for a long legal slog to determine the outcome, the growing polling gap between Vice President Biden and President Trump suggests that a timely and decisive outcome could be possible. Should he lose, we’ll be watching out for what a scorned President Trump might do to secure his post-presidential future during the lame duck period. Finally, we’ll also be watching how Europe and the United States continue to cope with COVID-19 and its accompanying toll on our economies and democracies during what promises to be a difficult winter.

 

Be healthy and well.

April 1

A Russian military plane carrying masks and ventilators landed in New York, where personal protective equipment against the coronavirus had been in short supply. The move drew criticism on both sides of the Atlantic, to which the Russian government responded by saying that the United States and Russia had split the costs of the equipment evenly and that Russia could depend on aid from the United States in the future. In a press briefing , President Trump called the shipment “very nice.”

April 2

In a final ruling, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) judged that Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic had broken their obligation to take their share of asylum seekers during the refugee crisis in 2015.

April 2

Leaders of 13 European People’s Party (EPP) member parties issued a joint statement calling for the expulsion of the Hungarian Fidesz party from the EPP following the passage of a new law granting Prime Minister Viktor Orbán the power to rule by decree indefinitely.

April 5

Queen Elizabeth II addressed the United Kingdom about COVID-19 in a rare televised speech – her fifth special address to the nation in her 68-year reign.

April 6

The Trump administration officially designated a Russia-based white supremacist group as a terrorist organization.

April 6

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was taken to the intensive care unit after his coronavirus symptoms worsened. He would be moved from the intensive care unit back to the general hospital on April 9.

April 6

The EU announced new tariffs on select U.S. imports in response to President Trump’s decision to extend duties on imported steel and aluminum.

April 8

The ECJ ordered Poland to suspend the Disciplinary Chamber at the Supreme Court of Poland, a body which was empowered to prosecute judges.

April 8

The Eurogroup’s finance ministers failed to reach an agreement on an EU economic response to COVID-19 after 16 hours of negotiations.

April 9

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Russia, and other countries agreed to temporarily cut oil production by a record 10 million barrels per day in response to plummeting demand due to coronavirus-related lockdowns. Although the deal marked the end of an oil price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia, oil prices continued to drop, eventually dipping into negative territory on April 20.

April 9

The Eurogroup’s finance ministers reached an agreement on a €540 billion plan to help their economies but did not agree on the issuance of corona-bonds.

April 9

Malta faced accusations of sabotaging a migrant boat as it was approaching its coast.

April 9

Christophe Castaner, Fernando Grande-Marlaska Gómez, Luciana Lamorgese, and Horst Seehofer, Interior Ministers of France, Spain, Italy, and Germany, called for a “binding mechanism” to facilitate asylum applicants being settled throughout Europe, with “other measures of solidarity” besides relocation being accepted ideally as an exception.

April 12

Prime Minister Johnson was discharged from the hospital and taken to Chequers, his country retreat, to recover. Johnson released a video statement thanking the National Health Service (NHS), which he called Britain’s “greatest national asset,” for saving his life.

April 14

President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. would halt funding to the World Health Organization.

April 15

G20 finance ministers agreed to suspend debt payments for the world’s poorest countries through the end of 2020 to help them manage the COVID-19 pandemic.

April 16

In an interview, French President Emmanuel Macron said the future of the European Union depended on “financial transfers and solidarity” and that “we are at a moment of truth, which is to decide whether the European Union is a political project or just a market project.”

April 16

EPP President Donald Tusk called for an economic “blitzkrieg” in order to save member states like Italy and Spain. He warned that Europe’s response to COVID-19 thus far had damaged its reputation in member states hard-hit by the pandemic and in would-be members in the Western Balkans, to the benefit of China and Russia. He also said a decision regarding EPP membership of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party was necessary due to Orbán’s efforts to expand his power under the cover of pandemic response.

April 17

The European Commission issued legal guidelines for apps used to monitor the spread of COVID-19 and contact tracing. In particular, data collected by voluntary apps should be controlled by national health authorities, and individuals choosing to use the apps would retain control over their data, in accordance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the ePrivacy Directive. Subsequently, the Commission issued a set of cross-border interoperability guidelines for approved apps, attempting to link member state backend systems despite issues posed by divides in app infrastructure.

April 19

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte called for common European bonds in order to marshal all of the EU’s economic capacity against COVID-19, which presented a unique historical moment requiring a “leap in political quality.”

April 20

In a press conference, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said “Germany will only do well in the long run if Europe does well” and that a COVID-19 recovery package would need to be factored into the next EU budget. She assured the audience, though, that Germany would show solidarity with other EU member states “over and above, that which we already have with the €500 billion [financial aid package].”

April 20

The second round of Brexit negotiations began between Michel Barnier, the European Commission’s Chief Negotiator, and David Frost, his U.K. counterpart.

April 22

Before a virtual summit of the European Council, Michael Roth, Germany’s Europe minister, warned that violations of core EU values during the COVID-19 pandemic would result in “financial consequences,” indicating support for a rule of law mechanism in the EU’s budget for 2021-2027. Roth’s comments came on the heels of opportunistic consolidation of executive power in Hungary and Poland amid the coronavirus crisis.

April 22

Executives from 22 major European companies published a joint letter to EU leaders saying that in “[r]ecovering from the crisis, only European solutions can work, putting the Single Market as the central instrument.” They called for the European Council to ensure the flow of goods and services across EU borders and lauded European Commission proposals for “Green Lanes” to prevent unnecessary stoppages in the transport of goods and workers.

April 22

President Trump signed an executive order suspending immigration to the United States for 60 days to protect “already disadvantaged and unemployed Americans from the threat of competition for scarce jobs from new lawful permanent residents” in a post-COVID-19 economic recovery.

April 23

In a letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Council President Charles Michel, and European Parliament President David Sassoli, the mayors of major European cities including Amsterdam, Barcelona, Nuremburg, and Utrecht pledged to take in the estimated 5,500 unaccompanied minors in refugee camps on Greek islands, saying that “Europe needs to step up to provide shelter, comfort and safety” for the most vulnerable.

April 23

A virtual summit of the European Council concluded that the European Commission should draw up a new EU budget for 2021-2027 that would finance the post-COVID-19 economic recovery through a combination of loans and grants. Some estimates put the total amount at €2 trillion.

April 24

The European External Action Service (EEAS) published a report on online disinformation regarding COVID-19, which specifically called out “Russia and – to a lesser extent – China” for targeting disinformation and conspiracy narratives at European and other audiences. The report caused controversy as Chinese diplomats reportedly pressured the European Union to soften language in the report.

April 25

In a weekend video podcast, Chancellor Merkel forecasted that the priorities of the German presidency of the European Council, scheduled to begin on July 1, would shift to focus on combating the virus and its effects, prioritizing the health of European citizens, and Europe’s climate. Specific potential reforms included establishing efficient health systems in all states, a financial transaction tax, and minimum tax rates across EU member states.

April 26

The Chinese Embassy in Paris published an op-ed on its website entitled “Why is the COVID-19 epidemic so politicized?” claiming that COVID-19 had in part become “politicized” because certain Western countries had begun to lose faith in liberal democracy and that Chinese socialism would prove better able to “concentrate means for the sake of broader goals.”

April 28

The European Commission announced an additional €194 million of support for security, stability and resilience in the Sahel during the EU-G5 Sahel video conference. The conference was co-chaired by European Council President Charles Michel and Mohamed Ould Ghazouani, President of Mauritania. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, EU High Representative Josep Borrell, and President of the African Union Commission Moussa Faki Mahamat were also in attendance.

April 29

The European Commission launched an infringement procedure against Poland over its December 2019 judicial reform, which it said undermined the independence of the Polish judiciary by making it easier to punish judges.

April 30

In a hearing before the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs committee, EU High Representative Josep Borrell denied that the EEAS had watered down a report on disinformation due to Chinese pressure, but hinted that such pressure might have exerted. “Calls to present complaints or to advise in favor of a given course of action are the daily bread of diplomacy,” Borrell said, “We, at the European Union, practice them constantly.”

April 30

The EU and other World Trade Organization (WTO) members formally launched a new appeals body for trade dispute settlements while the WTO’s original Appellate Body remains blocked by the United States.

May 3

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Council President Charles Michel, Italian President Giuseppe Conte, President Macron, Chancellor Merkel, Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wrote an op-ed calling an “unprecedented global cooperation” to confront COVID-19 “our generation’s duty” and pledged the funds raised by global fundraising efforts to organizations working to develop COVID-19 diagnostics and treatments.

May 4

Rolf Mützenich, leader of the Social Democrats in the German Bundestag, called for U.S. nuclear weapons stationed on German soil to be removed and warned that the Trump administration’s nuclear strategy had made the use of nuclear weapons more likely. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, also of the SPD, pushed back on Mützenich’s comments, saying that “German foreign and security policy must never take a separate path.”

May 5

The German Federal Constitutional Court ruled that the European Central Bank’s 2015 bond buying program went beyond its mandate, declared the 2018 ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) allowing the bond buying to be invalid, and ordered the German government to ensure that the European Central Bank carried out a “proportionality test” on bond buying. This ruling marked the first time that a national constitutional court had challenged a ruling by the ECJ.

May 5

The first round of U.S.-U.K. trade talks officially began with a video call between U.K. International Trade Secretary Liz Truss and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer. The first round of talks was expected to last two weeks, with further rounds to follow every six weeks.

May 5

The German Federal Prosecutor issued an arrest warrant for Dmitriy Badin, a Russian hacker suspected to be working with the Russian intelligence agency GRU, for the 2015 hack of the Bundestag that resulted in 16 terabytes of data being stolen. The next week, Chancellor Merkel confirmed the existence of hard evidence that the attack had been carried out by Russia.

May 6

In its Spring 2020 Economic Forecast, the European Commission warned that the EU’s economy was estimated to contract 7.5% in 2020 due to COVID-19, a deeper contraction than during the 2009 financial crisis.

May 6

The EU ambassador to China Nicolas Chapuis, along with the 27 EU member state ambassadors to China, published a joint op-ed, in the China Daily celebrating 45 years of EU-China ties and highlighting increased EU-China cooperation, while noting “differences, notably on human rights.” The same day, it was revealed that the EU had succumbed to Chinese pressure to censor the article in order to publish it in the China Daily, removing a line that stated the coronavirus had originated in China.

May 7

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, along with the foreign ministers of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, and Slovakia issued a joint statement commemorating the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. “Lasting international security, stability and peace,” they wrote, depended on adherence to international law and norms, including state sovereignty and territorial integrity.

May 7

Polish presidential elections scheduled for May 10 were postponed until June 28 due to COVID-19. Previously, the governing Law and Justice (PiS) Party had been pressing to move forward with a short-notice mail-in vote despite opposition concerns about the ongoing pandemic, feasibility, and potential electoral fraud.

May 10

Prime Minister Johnson laid out the “shape of a plan” to reopen the United Kingdom in an address to the nation. In a joint statement, Prime Minister Johnson and President Macron announced that quarantines would not be required for travelers between their two countries and that an inter-governmental working group would be created to handle border issues.

May 12

Nine high-level former European Commission officials wrote a letter to Commission President von der Leyen and her Commission, urging that the EU adopt a new tack in “relaunch[ing] multilateral approaches” to overcome the weaknesses in EU trade policy, such as China’s lack of reciprocity and the World Trade Organization’s inability to enforce existing trade rules. The officials called on the Commission to exert more leadership “to counteract the centrifugal and selfish tendencies of the member states.

May 13

The French Assemblée nationale passed a new hate speech law that would require companies like Facebook, Google, and Twitter to remove hate speech within 24 hours or face fines of up to €1.25 million. Prior to its adoption, the law had faced criticism in France due to fears that it could result in lawful content being taken down and from the European Commission, which urged the French government to delay the bill until an EU-wide response to online hate speech could be adopted. France’s Constitutional Court would reject most of the draft law on June 18, citing its infringement on freedom of expression.

May 13

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer announced that Germany had reached an agreement with Austria, France, and Switzerland to reopen their land borders for travel by June 15. The same day, the European Commission presented guidelines for reopening the European Union, providing epidemiological, economic and social, and containment-based conditions for reopening.

May 15

The third round of U.K.-EU talks on their future relationship ended with little progress made, according to both U.K. and EU chief negotiators David Frost and Michel Barnier. A key sticking point in the negotiations was whether the United Kingdom would abide by EU laws and standards in return for single market access.

May 16

As part of Italy’s reopening of its COVID-19 lockdown, Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced that Italy would no longer require EU citizens to go into quarantine after crossing the Italian border. The same day, German and Luxembourgish Foreign Ministers Heiko Maas and Jean Asselborn symbolically opened the Germany-Luxembourg border while standing on a bridge over the Moselle River.

May 16

A data breach of a European Parliament database associated with the European People’s Party exposed sensitive information, including passwords, connected to the accounts of 1,200 elected officials and staff, as well as 15,000 other accounts associated with European affairs experts.

May 18

Chancellor Merkel and President Macron announced a new plan to fund Europe’s post-COVID-19 economic recovery through €500 billion in debt backed by all 27 EU member states, to be distributed as grants through the EU budget. While the plan marked a sharp reversal in Germany’s traditional opposition to joint European debt, it faced near immediate pushback from the EU’s “Frugal Four,” Austria, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Sweden, in a video conference of EU finance ministers the next day. Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte responded that the proposal was “a bold and significant step,” but that more action was required, including greater financial resources.

May 18

President Trump threatened to permanently cut U.S. funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) and to pull the United States out of the WHO if the body did not commit to “major substantive improvements within the next 30 days.” He claimed that the WHO had ignored reports of the coronavirus’s spread in Wuhan and leveled charges of “political gamesmanship” at the organization’s head, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

May 19

President Macron lost his absolute majority in the Assemblée nationale when seven members of parliament defected from his La République en marche party (LREM) to form a new parliamentary grouping, “Ecology, Democracy, Solidarity,” to advocate for “social and environmental justice,” according to one of its new members, Aurélien Taché.

May 20

The European Commission called for member states to invest heavily in public health and protect jobs in order to mitigate the economic effects of the coronavirus. It also announced normal fiscal rules regarding excessive deficit spending would be waived due to the “extraordinary macroeconomic and fiscal impact of the pandemic.” The Commission’s recommendations focused both on short-term measures to overcome the economic shock of the pandemic and short- to medium-term proposals to fuel a green recovery.

May 21

The Trump administration announced its intention to withdraw from the Open Skies Treaty, arguing that “Russia’s implementation and violation of Open Skies […] has undermined this central confidence-building function of the Treaty.” The treaty, which went into effect in 2002, allowed its 35 members to fly over each other’s territory with sensitive surveillance equipment as an assurance that they were not preparing for military action.

May 25

George Floyd, an African-American man, was murdered in police custody in Minneapolis, MN after Derek Chauvin, a white officer, used his knee to pin Floyd by the neck. Chauvin and three other officers at the scene were charged with second-degree murder and aiding and abetting murder, respectively. Floyd’s death, which bystanders captured on video, re-escalated tensions around police brutality and systemic racism in the United States, sparking protests and riots in cities across the country.

May 26

Top officials in charge of digitalization for France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Spain wrote a joint op-ed criticizing top technology firms for imposing standards on democratically elected governments in their effort to combat the coronavirus. They called on Europe to “redefine its relationship to the digital ‘Global Players’” and said that digital sovereignty is the foundation of a sustainable European competitiveness.

May 27

Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented her plan for a European recovery fund as part of a revised EU budget for 2021-2027. The plan would envision the EU taking on €750 billion in joint debt, €500 billion in grants and €250 billion in loans, to fund its recovery.

May 28

Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States jointly condemned China’s decision to impose a new national security law on Hong Kong, which aims to quash activity viewed as endangering Chinese national security and potentially allows activist groups to be banned.

May 29

Following a virtual meeting of EU foreign ministers, EU High Representative Josep Borrell said that while China’s move to impose a new national security law on Hong Kong was of “grave concern,” it would not endanger EU-China investment deals. According to reporting, in the foreign ministers’ meeting, only Sweden raised the issue of levying sanctions against China for the move, to which Borrell responded that this was not the correct way to address differences with China.

May 29

Greece announced that it would open its borders to tourists from 29 countries, including EU member states like Estonia and Germany and non-member states like China, Japan, and New Zealand, beginning on June 15.

May 30-31

Protests in the wake of George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis and against police violence and racism spread to the major European cities including Berlin, Copenhagen, Dublin, and London.

June 1

To pave the way for a presidential photo op, Washington, DC police and National Guard units used flash-bang explosions and tear gas to disband protesters gathered outside the White House. Across the United States, officials and law enforcement employed curfews and similar crowd dispersal tactics to clamp down on people protesting police brutality.

June 2

Thousands gathered in Paris to protest a medical report that seemingly exonerated French police implicated in the 2016 death of Adama Traoré. A competing report commissioned by Traoré’s family showed that he died due to asphyxiation, similarly to George Floyd.

June 3

Italy reopened its borders for tourists from all European Union member states. Previously, reopenings by Austria, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, and Switzerland had either left restrictions in place for Italians or required Italians take extra steps to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

June 3

Chancellor Merkel, European Council President Charles Michel, and Chinese President Xi Jinping agreed to postpone a planned summit between the EU27 and China, originally scheduled for September 2020 in Leipzig, due to the coronavirus.

June 4

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier announced the launch of Gaia-X, a measure intended to boost the EU’s digital sovereignty in the field of cloud computing. Founded as a nonprofit, Gaia-X would bring together the cloud computing capacities of its numerous member companies to allow them to share data freely while maintaining the EU’s data privacy regime.

June 5

Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Slovakia published a joint position paper calling the EU’s self-regulatory approach to disinformation “insufficient and unsuitable.” Instead, they called for a new framework with accountability and transparency requirements for tech companies and online platforms.

June 5

President Trump issued an order to reduce the number of U.S. troops stationed in Germany by 9,500 and to limit the total number of U.S. troops stationed in Germany at any one time to 25,000. In an op-ed, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien later explained the decision as part of an effort to modernize the deployment of U.S. troops, calling the practice of stationing large numbers of troops on large bases in places like Germany “obsolete.”

June 9

A joint letter to the European Commission, initiated by Denmark and signed by France, Germany, Spain, Belgium, and Poland, criticized the EU’s response to the coronavirus, noting medical-supply shortages and uncoordinated responses between member states. The letter outlined proposals to improve the bloc’s pandemic preparedness, namely proposing coordinating the development of a coronavirus vaccine, “possibly” with EU funds.

June 10

For the first time, the European Commission labelled China, in addition to Russia, as a key spreader of disinformation connected to COVID-19 in an update to its strategy to combat disinformation.

June 10

EU High Representative Josep Borrell and Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton wrote in an op-ed that Europe’s “virtuous” soft power was no longer enough and that the “era of a conciliatory, if not naïve, Europe has come of age.” They called for Europe to improve its hard power dimension, not just in its military aspects, but also in Europe’s ability “to use its levers of influence to enforce its vision of the world and defend its own interests.”

June 11

The Élysée denied a media report claiming President Macron suggested he would resign and call a snap election in a videoconference.

June 11

In an executive order, President Trump authorized sanctions and visa restrictions against International Criminal Court (ICC) employees in an attempt to impede the ICC from investigating alleged war crimes committed in Afghanistan by U.S. military and intelligence officials. EU High Representative Josep Borrell expressed “serious concern” about Trump’s decision.

June 12

The United Kingdom confirmed that it would not seek an extension to the Brexit transition period, set to end on December 31, 2020. The United Kingdom’s new customs arrangement would proceed in three phases, beginning on January 1, 2021, with a full reinstatement of border controls on goods occurring in July 2021.

June 12

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin wrote to the finance ministers of France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom to announce the United States would suspend negotiations at the OECD over a global digital tax, saying the talks were at an “impasse” and threatening a U.S. response with “commensurate measures” to a digital services tax adopted by other countries. French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire called the move a “provocation to all OECD partners” and reiterated the desire for a French digital tax in 2020. The European Commission subsequently announced that it would revive plans for an EU-wide digital tax as a response.

June 13

France, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands signed an agreement with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to supply Europe up to 400 million doses of coronavirus vaccine beginning at the end of 2020.

June 14

In an address to the nation, French President Macron intimated that he would reset the last two years of his presidency by refocusing on green economic policies, social solidarity, and national industrial capacities.

June 15

U.K. Prime Minister Johnson met with European Commission President von der Leyen, European Council President Michel, and European Parliament President David Sassoli to continue negotiations concerning the future of the U.K.-EU relationship, agreeing that they needed to inject “new momentum” into talks. Johnson unilaterally declared that a deal could be agreed upon within six weeks.

June 15

Germany’s Economy Ministry announced it was acquiring 23% of CureVac, a biotech company developing a coronavirus vaccine – an investment of €300 million. In March, the Trump administration had sought to purchase exclusive access to CureVac’s vaccine.

June 15

EU Foreign Ministers met via videoconference with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to discuss transatlantic relations and foreign policy. EU High Representative Borrell proposed continuing a bilateral EU-U.S. dialogue on China, but there was no response from Pompeo. Similarly, the Americans did not respond to German Foreign Minister Maas’ call for multilateral cooperation to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.

June 15

The European Union imposed a 10.9% anti-subsidy tariff on glass fiber imported from Egypt. The tariff marked the first time that the EU sought to counter China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which supported the Egyptian glass fiber factories, by targeting exports from a third country for allegedly skirting duties imposed on Chinese exports.

June 15

After months of negotiations, Ireland’s Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and Green parties signed a coalition agreement that would see Fianna Fáil’s Micheál Martin and Fine Gael’s Leo Varadkar, then serving in a caretaker role, alternate as Taoiseach, with Varadkar returning to this role in 2022. The coalition entered into force on June 27, after the Greens, the last of three parties to endorse the agreement, voted by a wide margin to adopt it.

June 16

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said in a press conference that the United States had “made it clear that no final decision has been made on how and when” it would pull American troops out of Germany – effectively admitting that President Trump had not warned the alliance about his decision.

June 16

The Hungarian parliament moved to end the country’s “state of danger” but granted the government extensive powers that would allow for future rule by decree.

June 16

The EU opened antitrust investigations into Apple for concerns revolving around how it controls third-party offerings on its devices. Other Big Tech companies, including Amazon, Facebook, and Google, are also under antitrust scrutiny on both sides of the Atlantic for potential abuses of their ‘gatekeeper’ roles. As part of the forthcoming EU Digital Services Act, tech companies will face greater liability for content on their sites, and those that serve as digital marketplaces may be obliged to clearly separate their roles of owning a platform and conducting business on it.

June 16

EU member states agreed on a set of technical specifications for the secure exchange of information between national contact-tracing apps. Apps launched with centralized protocols for uploading data to a central, state-controlled server – such as France’s “StopCovid” app and the U.K.’s NHS COVID-19 app – would be incompatible with the Commission’s May interoperability framework.

June 17

An excerpt of former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton’s memoir revealed that President Trump had asked China for help to boost his chances of reelection in November.

June 17

The G7’s foreign ministers and High Representative Borrell issued a joint statement condemning China’s move to impose a national security law on Hong Kong, describing it as “seriously undermining the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ principle and the territory’s high degree of autonomy.”

June 17

The EU adopted new rules to impose fines on recipients of non-EU subsidies, block acquisitions of EU companies by recipients of non-EU subsidies, or exclude the recipients of non-EU subsidies from public procurement processes. Framed by the European Commission as essential to creating a level playing field in the Single Market, the new legislation could be used to target a wide variety of companies operating in the EU, including from China, Russia, and the United States.

June 18

In an op-ed, French Secretary of State for European Affairs Amélie de Montchalin, German Europe Minister Michael Roth, and Czech Deputy Europe Minister Aleš Chmelař condemned discrimination in Europe as “still all too common,” and called for greater equality for LGBTQ people.

June 18

India, Mexico, Norway, and Ireland won temporary seats on the United Nations Security Council for 2021-2022.

June 18

The European Parliament passed an amendment to the resolution in the European Commission’s annual report on competition policy, calling the Commission to increase “efforts to forcefully counter unfair competition and hostile behavior” from foreign state-owned or government-linked companies and “propose immediately a temporary ban on [such] foreign takeovers of European companies,” targeting Chinese firms in particular.

June 19

Members of the European Parliament passed a resolution strongly condemning the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in late May, criticizing President Trump, and calling for both the U.S. and EU to tackle structural racism and police brutality. It also passed a resolution condemning a potential conflict of interest by Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babiš.

June 19

The European Council summit to discuss the EU’s next budget and COVID-19 recovery efforts ended with little progress towards consensus and revealed instead little change in the sharp disagreements between EU member states over how the recovery package would be financed and even its size. European Council President Charles Michel stated his intention to convene a follow-up summit in mid-July to break the impasse.

June 22

Chinese President Xi Jinping participated in a summit with European Commission President von der Leyen and Council President Michel. Speaking after the videoconference, von der Leyen condemned China for targeting European hospitals and health care institutions with cyberattacks amid the COVID-19 crisis and stressed that China’s use of disinformation would not be tolerated. She did note, however, that the summit had been useful in advancing negotiations on trade and a planned EU-China investment agreement.

June 23

Over 1,000 parliamentarians from 25 European countries signed a joint letter to European governments and leaders condemning President Trump’s plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Israeli annexation of West Bank territory, set to take place as early as July 1, 2020.

June 24

Four days before Polish presidential elections, President Trump hosted President Andrzej Duda in Washington. During a news conference at the White House, Trump said that he would “probably” send some of the troops he plans to withdraw from Germany to Poland.

June 25

Shortly before a planned trip to the White House for peace talks with Serbian leaders, Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaçi was charged with crimes against humanity and war crimes by a special court in the Hague. Kosovan Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti subsequently pulled out of the Washington talks, but met in Brussels with Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, Commission President von der Leyen, European Council President Michel, Enlargement Commissioner Olivér Várhelyi, and Miroslav Lajčák, who was recently appointed as the EU special representative for the dialogue between Belgrade and Pristina.

June 25

In a non-binding opinion, Priit Pikamäe, an advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union, determined that Hungary’s treatment of asylum seekers entering the country violated EU law.

June 28

Poland’s incumbent President Andrzej Duda won the first round of Poland’s presidential election with 43.5%, followed by the opposition mayor of Warsaw Rafał Trzaskowski. The second round was scheduled for July 12.

June 28

In France’s second round of municipal elections, previously postponed due to the coronavirus, Macron’s party suffered disappointing results. Incumbent Socialist mayor Anne Hidalgo was reelected in Paris, while the Green Party won several major cities including Strasbourg, Lyon, Bordeaux, and Besançon.

June 29

Micheál Martin of the centrist Fianna Fáil was named Ireland’s new prime minister in a government coalition. Outgoing Prime Minister Leo Varadkar of Fine Gael will take over in the second half of the five-year mandate.

June 30

The European Council announced that it would begin lifting travel restrictions for citizens of 15 non-EU countries with, among other criteria, COVID-19 infection rates lower than the EU’s two-week average. Among these countries were Algeria, Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Rwanda, Serbia, but not the United States. China was also included in the list, pending a reciprocal easing of Chinese restrictions for EU citizens.

Between April 1 and June 30, 2020, President Trump spoke on the phone with French President Macron six times (April 3, April 26, May 20, May 28, May 30, June 22), Russian President Putin four times (April 10, April 12, May 7, June 1), Turkish President Erdoğan three times (April 19, May 23, June 8), U.K. Prime Minister Johnson twice (April 21, May 29), German Chancellor Merkel once (May 8), Portuguese President de Sousa once (May 1), Polish President Duda once (April 18), and Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán once (May 6). He did not speak with European Commission President von der Leyen or European Council President Michel in that time frame. 

We track Trump’s phone calls with the leaders of France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, whether they have spoken or not, as well as other calls with European leaders of which we are aware. The White House stopped releasing readouts of the president’s calls with foreign leaders in July 2018. If we’ve missed a conversation, please give us a ring. Sources: bundeskanzlerin.de, diplomatie.gouv.fr, gov.uk, en.kremlin.ru, press reports.

The first two quarters of 2020 saw the United States, Europe, and the world shut down due to the spread of the coronavirus. In many places, restrictions on travel and lockdowns forced people to stay in their homes at the risk of facing fines in many places. As border controls were imposed, travel halted between the United States and Europe, as well as among EU member states. In many countries, then, the story of the coronavirus – and of the public’s adherence to lockdown measures – can be told by the degree to which driving (indicative of longer distance travel) and walking (indicative of short distance or recreational travel) dropped.

 

 

In hardest-hit Italy, for example, the month of March 2020 was pivotal, both in the degree to which COVID-19 spread and to which people altered their daily habits. On March 1, the rates of driving and walking by Italian citizens dropped to 83.48% and 65.47% of their January 2020 levels – relatively unsurprising given that there were only approximately 1,700 confirmed coronavirus cases in the country. By April 1, this story had changed completely. With more than 110,000 confirmed cases, driving and walking levels in Italy cratered to 18.92% and 14.45% of their January 2020 levels. By July 1, with the rise in confirmed cases slowed, Italians took back to the roads and streets, with levels of driving and walking rising to 128.26% and 84.93% of their January 2020 equivalents.

 

 

COVID-19 lockdowns in the United States initially followed a path similar to Italy’s. A rapid expansion of confirmed cases led to a drastic clampdown on mobility during the month of March. According to the Johns Hopkins coronavirus tracker, between March 1 and April 1, confirmed cases in the United States skyrocketed from 30 to 214,205.* Unsurprisingly then, by April 1, the rates of driving and walking in the United States dropped by more than 50% (to 55.49% and 47.41% respectively) compared to their January 2020 levels. Yet while the viral spread of Italy’s cases slowed between May and June (33,332 additional cases between May 1 and July 1), that of the United States did not (1,581,000 additional cases between May 1 and July 1). Nevertheless, Americans began to abandon their commitment to coronavirus lockdowns over this same period. Between May 1 and July 1, U.S. driving rates increased from 67.56% to 149.63% of their January 2020 average, while walking rates increased from 69.58% to 118.56% over the same period.

 

To be sure, these data obscure certain regional differences in coronavirus infection rates and subsequent restrictions. In Germany and the United States, especially, federal governance structures placed responsibility for COVID lockdowns and reopenings in the hands of subnational authorities. As a result, recent increases in mobility in both countries may be explained by progressive reopenings in areas hit earlier in the year, while regions only now seeing peaks in caseloads struggle to lock down enough to control the spread of the virus. Nonetheless, the stark contrast in German and American aggregate performance is revealing. Germany saw only a 7% increase in cases nationwide between June 1 and July 1, a rate similar to Italy’s (3% increase over the same period). In the United States, on the other hand, much as in Russia, mobility data show that many have prematurely reverted a more premature reversion to pre-coronavirus routines – in defiance of still rapidly rising infection rates.

 

*NB. To simplify reporting of confirmed coronavirus cases, we exclusively used data from Johns Hopkins University.

Center on the United States and Europe Director Thomas Wright lays out events, issues, and potential developments to watch for in the months ahead.

 

I am delighted to share with you the eighth edition of the Trans-Atlantic Scorecard, a quarterly evaluation of U.S.-European relations produced by Brookings’s Center on the United States and Europe, as part of the Brookings – Robert Bosch Foundation Transatlantic Initiative.

 

This is the second scorecard published during the COVID-19 crisis. Europe seems to be back on its feet although life is far from normal. The United States, on the other hand, has experienced a massive spike in cases and the daily death toll is rising again. There is virtually no travel across the Atlantic and little cooperation to speak of. But there are some signs of progress. Most notably, the European Union reached agreement on a deal for the collectivization of debt as part of its efforts to fund a recovery from COVID-19.

 

There are a few points from this iteration of the survey worth highlighting.

 

The overall state of U.S.-European relations declined slightly, mainly because of the lack of coordination on COVID and the withdrawal of some U.S. troops from Germany. This was partly offset by the prospects of a trans-Atlantic dialogue on China, an initiative that was mooted on many occasions but always prevented from occurring due to President Trump’s hostility toward the European Union.

 

Of all the bilateral relations, U.S.-German relations declined the most sharply (by 0.7 to 2.7). The other bilateral relations moved up or down slightly (in the 0.2 to 0.3 point range). Overall, the United States still has the strongest ties with the United Kingdom (ranked at 4.8).

 

Additionally, several issues from our Survey merit highlighting as they pertain to events either on or just over the horizon. Almost 60% of respondents thought that COVID-19 would accelerate EU and U.S. re-shoring of supply chains away from China. Experts surveyed were split on whether a dialogue on China would improve U.S.-EU relations (33.3% agreed that it would, while 38.1% disagreed). And 55% thought that the United Kingdom would not secure a trade deal with the European Union by December 31 (25% said they would).

 

Looking ahead, two issues loom large. We are now entering the height of the U.S. election season, which begs the question whether President Trump will make any major foreign policy moves to improve his standing in the polls. Possible options include new tariffs on the European Union or the further withdrawal of U.S. forces from Germany. The second issue is the prospect that COVID-19 will intensify, and thus that the global economy will continue to deteriorate as we head into the fall. There has been little trans-Atlantic cooperation to date so we will be looking to see if that changes.

 

Thank you for reading the Trans-Atlantic Scorecard.

January 2

The Turkish parliament voted to deploy troops to Libya in support of UN-recognized Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj’s government, which is engaged in conflict against rebels led by General Khalifa Haftar, backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and the Wagner Group, a Russian private military corporation with suspected links to the Russian government.Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi said that Turkish troops would not be engaged in combat, but would focus on “technical support and military training.” President Erdoğan confirmed that the first of these troops had arrived on January 5.

January 2

Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, leader of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force, was killed in a drone strike outside the Baghdad airport. In a statement, the U.S. Department of Defense took responsibility for the assassination, saying “This strike was aimed at deterring future Iranian attack plans.”

January 2

Austrian Prime Minister Sebastian Kurz announced the formation of a new coalition between his center-right People’s Party (OVP) and the progressive Green Party. After Prime Minister Kurz’s previous coalition with the far-right Freedom Party collapsed in May 2019, the OVP won 37% of the vote in elections held in September 2019.

January 4

President Trump warned on Twitter that the United States had chosen 52 sites to attack within Iran, “some at a very high level and important to Iran and the Iranian culture,” if Tehran ordered assaults on American assets or citizens. Trump also notified Congress on Twitter that “should Iran strike any U.S. person or target, the United States will quickly & fully strike back, & perhaps in a disproportionate manner.”

January 5

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo declared that “we will respond with great force and great vigor if the Iranian leadership makes a bad decision.”

January 5

The Iranian government declared it would no longer adhere to the limitations placed by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on its centrifuges used to enrich uranium, but would continue to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency.

January 5

EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell urged the Iranian foreign minister to “exercise restraint and carefully consider any reaction to avoid further escalation, which harms the entire region and its people.”

January 6

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that NATO training of Iraqi soldiers as part of the anti-ISIS campaign had been temporarily suspended in the wake of General Qasem Soleimani’s assassination.

January 7

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis visited the White House. During this meeting, President Trump specified that he would not target Iranian cultural sites, recognizing that such action would breach international law: “If that’s what the law is, I like to obey the law.”

January 7

President Macron called Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to express France’s commitment to easing tensions and a desire for Iran to “refrain from any measure likely to exacerbate the ongoing escalation of tensions.” Macron also called on Iran to return to full compliance with the JCPOA and for the release of two French scholars imprisoned in Iran.

January 7

Pedro Sanchez was approved the Congress of Deputies as Prime Minister of Spain, making it possible to form a coalition government between his Socialists and the left-wing Unidas Podemos party – the first coalition government since Spain became a democracy in the 1970s.

January 7

EU High Representative Josep Borrell met with the foreign ministers of Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and the United Kingdom to discuss ways to bring an end to the conflict in Libya diplomatically. In a joint statement following the meeting, they stressed the EU’s conviction that “there is no military solution to the Libyan crisis” and condemned “continuing outside interference [for…] fueling the crisis.”

January 8

In an address to the nation, President Trump declared that “Iran appears to be standing down, which is a good thing for all parties concerned and a very good thing for the world.” He added that “the United States is ready to embrace peace with all who seek it,” while vowing to impose stronger economic sanctions against Iran.

January 8

Ukraine International Flight 752 crashed in Tehran a few minutes after takeoff, killing the 176 people on board. Iran later admitted to having shot the plane down by mistake.

January 8

Prime Minister Boris Johnson met the new President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, at 10 Downing Street to discuss their future talks on the post-Brexit trade deal between the United Kingdom and the European Union.

January 9

The U.K. House of Commons approved the Brexit implementing legislation, paving the way for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union on January 31.

January 10

Northern Ireland’s two largest parties, the hardline nationalist Sinn Féin and hardline unionist Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), reached an agreement to resume power-sharing governance after a three-year hiatus.

January 12

Malta’s Prime Minister Joseph Muscat resigned from office amid growing controversies over the 2017 murder of an anti-corruption journalist. He was replaced by Robert Abela, the son of Malta’s ex-president.

January 13

Russian military intelligence operatives hacked Ukrainian energy firm Burisma, the company at the center of President Trump’s impeachment trial, through the use of phishing emails and fake logins, in a likely attempt to acquire information damaging to former Vice President Joe Biden.

January 13

EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan arrived in Washington, DC for a four-day visit, which included meetings with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and legislators.

January 14

In a joint statement, the British, French, and German foreign ministers announced that they had triggered the dispute resolution mechanism of the JCPOA, a first step toward re-imposing United Nations sanctions on Iran.

January 14

After President Macron agreed to a small increase in French troops posted in West Africa to fight terrorism, French officials criticized the U.S. plan to slash the number of American forces in the region.

January 15

In his annual state of the nation address, President Putin proposed constitutional changes, to be put to a nationwide vote, including an increase in the parliament’s and the State Council’s powers. On the same day, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and his government resigned. Medvedev became deputy head of the Security Council, a body presided over by President Putin.

January 15

Turkey restored access to Wikipedia after the Supreme Court ruled the ban unconstitutional.

January 16

The Russian parliament approved President Putin’s nominee, Mikhail Mishustin, former head of the Federal Tax Service, as the new Prime Minister.

January 16

Ukraine opened a criminal investigation into associates of President Trump amid reports that former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie L. Yovanovitch was under their surveillance while posted in Kyiv.

January 16

The U.S. Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan federal watchdog agency, found that the White House broke the Impoundment Control Act by withholding $400 million of congressionally allocated military assistance to Ukraine in the summer of 2019.

January 19

During the Libya peace summit held in Berlin, Russia, Turkey, and a dozen other international powers with interests in Libya called for a cease-fire and agreed to uphold an arms embargo.

January 20

President Putin officially submitted his previously announced constitutional amendments to the Russian parliament. In one of the biggest changes, the Putin-chaired State Council would be afforded broad powers to “determine the main direction of domestic and foreign policy.” Putin also removed Prosecutor General Yuri Y. Chaika from office and replaced him with Igor Krasnov, the deputy head of the Investigative Committee.

January 20

Serbia and Kosovo agreed to resume flights between their capitals under a deal facilitated by the United States.

January 20

President Macron announced a suspension of a digital tax on American tech companies in exchange for the postponement of retaliatory U.S. tariffs on French goods.

January 23

President Trump renewed his threats to impose a 25% tariff on all European car imports if the European Union did not agree to a trade deal with the United States.

January 24

President Trump proclaimed that he would broaden all steel and aluminum tariffs to include products made of those metals, such as nails and cables.

January 26

In local elections in Italy’s Emilia-Romagna region, incumbent President Stefano Bonaccini, of the center-left Democratic Party (PD), beat by a thin margin Lucia Borgonzoni, the candidate of the Center Right (League, Brothers of Italy and Forza Italia) backed by former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, in a weeks-long heated campaign. In Calabria, the Center Right Candidate defeated her PD opponent.

January 27

The Libyan cease-fire collapsed, and foreign arms sales to Libyan combatants resumed in violation of the UN arms embargo.

January 28

The United Kingdom announced that “high risk vendors” like China’s Huawei would be allowed access to no more than 35% of the country’s telecommunications network and excluded from all safety and national security-related aspects of the 5G network. The move came idespite U.S. pressure to ban Huawei completely.

January 29

The European Union released a “5G toolbox” to help its member states navigate the risks posed by using vendors such as Huawei for their 5G equipment.

January 31

The United Kingdom formally withdrew from the European Union, beginning a transition period during which a new relationship with the European Union would be negotiated. The 11-month transition period is scheduled to end on Dec. 31, 2020.

January 31

Charles Michel, David Sassoli and Ursula von der Leyen, Presidents of the European Council, European Parliament, and European Commission, respectively, published an op-ed article titled “A new dawn for Europe,” taking stock of the United Kingdom’s departure and looking towards the EU’s future.

February 4

President Andrzej Duda of Poland signed into law a controversial piece of legislation making it possible to fine and fire judges whose actions and decisions are deemed harmful by the government.

February 5

The U.S. Senate acquitted President Trump on impeachment charges of abusing power and obstructing Congress.

February 6

EU Trade Commissioner Phil Hogan returned to Washington, DC for further talks with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and legislators seeking to forestall the imposition of U.S. auto tariffs and pave the way for a potential meeting between President Trump and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Washington, DC.

February 8

Parliamentary elections in Ireland resulted in a highly fragmented Dáil, the Irish parliament’s lower house, with nationalist party Sinn Féin making substantial gains, but no single party receiving more than 25% of the seats.

February 10

German Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer announced her resignation as Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union, pending the election of a new party leader. The announcement restarted the race to succeed Chancellor Merkel, as Kramp-Karrenbauer was the heir apparent.

February 14

European Council President Charles Michel released his latest proposal for the EU’s budget for 2021-2027. Among the key changes are a roughly 30% cut to the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that supports farms across the bloc, as well as a requirement that cuts to development funding related to rule of law violations be approved – rather than blocked – by a qualified majority in the European Council.

February 15

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference, Secretary of Defense Mark Esper urged that American “concerns about Beijing’s commercial and military expansion should be [European] concerns as well” and that Europeans should “clearly choose a global system that supports democracy.”

February 19

In the German town of Hanau, a far-right extremist shot and killed nine people in an apparently racist attack against people of Turkish descent. The next day, Chancellor Merkel responded saying racism and hatred were a “poison” in German society that had caused the murder by a neo-Nazi of CDU politician Walter Lübcke in June 2019 and the synagogue shooting in Halle in October 2019, among other crimes.

February 19

The United Kingdom introduced a points-based immigration system, to take effect in January 2021. The new system, which requires migrants to speak English and have a job offer from an approved sponsor at an appropriate skill level, aims to reduce overall levels of migration and prioritizes highly skilled workers.

February 20

Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar and the leaders of the other two major Irish parties, Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin, faced votes in parliament to determine the next prime minister. After Varadkar failed to receive sufficient support to retain his position and since neither Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin nor Sinn Féin garnered sufficient votes to supplant him, Varadkar resigned and assumed a caretaker role with coalition talks set to continue.

February 20

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo blamed Russia for an October 2019 cyberattack on Georgia that affected thousands of Georgian government and business websites and broadcasts for two major television stations, calling the attack a contradiction of Russia’s “claim [that] it is a responsible actor in cyber space.” The United Kingdom and Australia joined the United States in blaming Russia for the attack.

February 21

After two days of talks, the European Council failed to come to an agreement on the EU’s next budget, rejecting Council President Charles Michel’s version released the previous week. Key sticking points included the overall size of the budget, with some states pushing for new cuts, and others hoping to preserve funding for development programs and the CAP.

February 23

The G20 summit of finance ministers and central bank governors concluded in Riyadh. For the first time during the Trump administration, the joint communiqué issued by the G20 referenced the economic consequences of climate change and called on the Financial Stability Board to examine the effects of climate on financial stability.

February 27

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited West Africa to discuss investment, security, and democratic governance against a backdrop of impending troop cuts and the termination of aid to French forces in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso.

February 27

In northwest Syria, an airstrike carried out by Syrian government forces killed 33 Turkish soldiers.

February 29

President Erdoğan confirmed that he had opened Turkey’s borders for Syrian and Afghan migrants to cross into Europe, claiming that Turkey could no longer handle the influx of refugees. He also accused the EU of failing to uphold its end of the 2016 EU-Turkey deal, which called for irregular migrants intercepted on Greek islands to be returned to Turkey, the European Union to provide economic support to Turkey, and refugees to be resettled from Turkey to the European Union. The same day, Greek authorities announced that they had intercepted approximately 4,000 people attempting to cross the border overnight.

February 29

The United States signed a conditional peace agreement with the Taliban outlining a timetable for the final withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan. At a press conference in Kabul, U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper called the agreement “a real path toward the future this country deserves,” while NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that NATO would draw down its forces to match conditions on the ground, saying that “NATO allies and partners went into Afghanistan together” and would leave together.

February 29

In Slovakia, the opposition Ordinary People party (OLaNO) won national elections on an anti-corruption platform. OLaNO founder Igor Matovič became Prime Minister on March 21.

March 1

Turkey launched a major counteroffensive in Syria in response to the killing of its soldiers a few days earlier. In a statement, Turkish Minister of Defense Hulusi Akar framed the operation as seeking to end the conflict in Syria.

March 2

British Prime Minister Johnson’s government laid out its objectives for U.K.-U.S. trade talks. In particular, the plan indicated that certain items, such as food safety, were non-negotiable, and that the National Health Service “is not, and never will be, for sale to the private sector, whether overseas or domestic.”

March 2

Russian President Putin proposed a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, which the parliament approved as part of a package of new amendments to the constitutional review process. A nation-wide referendum on the constitutional amendments, planned for April 22, was postponed due to COVID-19.

March 4

President Zelensky of Ukraine fired his cabinet of ministers and appointed a new prime minister, replacing Oleksiy Honcharuk with former deputy prime minister, Denys Shmyhal.

March 4

The European Union proposed a new European Climate Law to codify its 2050 net zero emissions target as part of the implementation of its European Green Deal.

March 5

After lengthy negotiations, Presidents Putin and Erdoğan agreed to a cease-fire in Syria’s Idlib region.

March 9

Italy became the first European country to implement strict lockdown procedures to curb the spread of COVID-19, halting all nonessential travel.

March 9

In The Hague, the trial of four Russian suspects connected to the 2014 downing of a passenger jet over eastern Ukraine that killed 298 people began. With the trial expected to last months, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg greeted the start of the trial as an “important milestone in the efforts to ensure justice” for the victims and their families.

March 10

The lower house of the Russian parliament passed a constitutional reform allowing President Putin to run for two additional six-year terms.

March 12

President Trump announced a travel ban, effective March 13, on all non-U.S. citizens traveling from Europe – defined specifically as people who had visited the Schengen Area within the previous 14 days of their travel to the United States – to counter the spread of COVID-19. While the initial order did not include the United Kingdom and Ireland, it was later expanded to include these countries.

March 12

The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, officially classified the “Flügel,” the most radical wing of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), as a far-right extremist group hostile to Germany’s “free democratic constitution.” The move would allow the BfV to recruit informants, monitor phone calls, and keep personal data on file.

March 13

European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson announced that European Union would offer €2,000 ($2,230) to migrants stranded on Greek islands to return to their home countries. This voluntary scheme would only be applicable to migrants who arrived in Greece before January 1, 2020. This announcement came on the heels of Turkey beginning to wind down its efforts to drive migrants to the EU border, as buses began to transport migrants at the Greek-Turkish border back to Istanbul.

March 15

The German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported that President Trump attempted to purchase exclusive rights to a potential COVID-19 vaccine from CureVac, a Germany-based biotech company. In response, German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier declared that “Germany is not for sale.”

March 15

Several thousand Ukrainians gathered in Kyiv to protest the government’s handling of negotiations with Russia over the war in eastern Ukraine. The protests occurred despite COVID-19-related bans on mass gatherings.

March 15

Municipal elections for 40,000 state offices were held in Bavaria, in spite of increasing measures to halt the spread of COVID-19 such as a ban on large public gatherings. Officials noted increased mail-in voting, and several mayoral elections, including the Munich election, were forced into run-offs.

March 15

The first round of local elections were held in almost 35,000 French municipalities despite the government’s COVID-19-related ban on gatherings of over 100, closure of schools and universities, and suspension of large sporting events. The second round, originally scheduled for March 22, was tentatively rescheduled for June 21.

March 16

The Russian Constitutional Court approved a package of amendments, including one that would allow President Putin to seek reelection for two additional six-year terms. A national referendum on the constitutional changes was postponed due to COVID-19.

March 16

The French Competition Authority fined Apple $1.2 billion for “engaging in anticompetitive agreements within its distribution network and abuse of a situation of economic dependency with regard to its ‘premium’ independent distributors.”

March 17

The European Union announced that it would close its borders to all “non-essential travel” for 30 days to slow the spread of COVID-19.

March 18

Iran released French academic Roland Marchal in a prisoner exchange. France, for its part, released Iranian engineer Jalal Ruhollahnejad. Marchal had been imprisoned since June 2019 on national security-related charges. Marchal’s colleague, Fariba Adelkah, who was imprisoned at the same time, remained incarcerated.

March 25

Kosovo’s ruling coalition in parliament was ousted in a no-confidence vote, following a dispute over its management of COVID-19. The ousted coalition government had been formed only two months prior to its dissolution.

March 25

The British Supreme Court ruled that the government should not give further evidence helping the United States in its proceedings against two British ISIS detainees “without the appropriate death penalty assurances.”

March 25

Turkish prosecutors indicted 20 Saudi nationals for the murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

March 27

North Macedonia became the 30th member state of NATO. North Macedonia had ratified NATO’s accession protocol with unanimous support in parliament on February 11, but its entry into the alliance was delayed until Spain had ratified its accession.

March 31

The European Union launched Operation IRINI, mobilizing aerial, satellite, and maritime assets to enforce the Libya arms embargo.

March 31

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom used INSTEX, a financial mechanism set up to maintain trade with Iran despite U.S. sanctions, to sell roughly €500,000 of medical goods. This marked the first time that INSTEX had been used to facilitate trade between the European Union and Iran.

March 31

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hungarian parliament granted Prime Minister Viktor Orbán the right to rule by decree for an indefinite period of time, while suspending elections and threatening people that publicize information the government determines to be untrue with jail.

Tracking President Trump’s reported phone conversations with European leaders.

 

Between January 1 and March 31, 2020, President Trump spoke on the phone with Turkish President Erdoğan six times (January 2, January 15, January 27, February 15, February 28, March 31), French President Macron six times (January 5, January 20, March 4, March 13, March 19, March 26), U.K. Prime Minister Johnson five times (January 24, January 28, February 20, March 14, March 27), German Chancellor Merkel three times (January 7, January 12, March 27), Italian Prime Minister Conte once (March 30), Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis once (March 2), Hungarian Prime Minister Orbán once (February 17), and Russian President Putin once (March 30). He did not speak with European Commission President von der Leyen or European Council President Michel in that time frame.

 

We track Trump’s phone calls with the leaders of France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, whether they have spoken or not, as well as other calls with European leaders of which we are aware. The White House stopped releasing readouts of the president’s calls with foreign leaders in July 2018. If we’ve missed a conversation, please give us a ring. Sources: bundeskanzlerin.de, diplomatie.gouv.fr, gov.uk, en.kremlin.ru, press reports.

COVID-19 and the Russia-Saudi Arabia oil price war

 

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, rapidly falling demand for oil triggered a snap meeting of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on March 5. To prevent a collapse in prices due to over-supply, OPEC members agreed to further cut oil production by 1 million barrels per day until June 2020 and called on non-OPEC members, like Russia, to cut 500,000 barrels per day. When Russia refused to adhere to the cuts, Saudi Arabia responded by slashing its export prices to outbid Russian oil and issued plans to increase its production from less than 10 million barrels per day to 12.3 million. Russia, in turn, responded with a production increase of 300,000 barrels per day from a February 2020 output of 11.3 million barrels per day, contributing to a sharp collapse in oil prices.

 

Yet what makes the current crisis truly exceptional is that it coincides with an unprecedented collapse in global demand for oil. During the first quarter of 2020, the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) conservatively estimated a roughly 9% decrease in global demand for liquid fuel and a decrease of 5.6 million barrels per day compared to the same period in 2019. Predictions focusing on March and April show an even more dire situation. IHS Markit, a research and analysis firm focused on global markets, has predicted that demand for oil in April 2020 will be 20 million barrels per day lower than April 2019 and that the second quarter of 2020 overall will see demand for oil be 16.4 million barrels per day less than the same period in 2019. Physical global storage limitations of 1.2 billion barrels may then force a production cut of 10 million barrels per day over the next quarter, according to IHS Markit. In sharp contrast, during the 2014-2016 period, the previous oil crisis, which led to the first production cut agreement between OPEC and non-OPEC members since 2001, no quarter saw a change in demand larger than 5%, and demand actually increased slightly across the period.

 

 

The sheer speed of the current collapse of global oil prices stemming from the cratering of global demand for oil and from the price war also dwarfs the 2014-2016 oil crisis. Between March 6 and March 13, 2020, Brent crude prices dropped 32%, from roughly $50 per barrel to $34. By March 27, 2020, they dropped another 30% to less than $24 per barrel. Viewed on a quarterly level, from the beginning of January to the end of March 2020, oil prices dropped nearly 78%, from just above $67 per barrel on January 2 to nearly $15 per barrel on March 31. By comparison, between June 2014 and December 2016, when the previous OPEC+ production cuts deal was concluded, no quarter saw a price drop greater than 30%.

 

 

While OPEC and Russia have reached a deal to institute the largest production cuts in history, the combination of low demand for oil due to COVID-19 and staggeringly low oil prices are projected to extend the economic pain. By mid March 2020, global investment by oil and natural gas companies had already fallen by $31 billion. Weaker states with high oil production costs that depend on oil rents, like Algeria and Venezuela, could face even greater political instability. The economic danger for U.S. states where fracking is prevalent, like Pennsylvania or Texas, home to Midland, the U.S. metropolitan area most threatened economically by COVID-19, is also considerable and could play a potential role in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, depending on the length and severity of the crisis.

 

At the time of writing (April 21, 2020), following U.S. oil prices for May contracts entering negative territory for the first time in history, Brent crude prices have dropped to below $20 per barrel. Undeniably, the dramatic COVID-19 induced slump in demand combined with the oil price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia have ushered global energy markets – and thus geopolitics – into uncharted territory.

 

Center on the United States and Europe Director Thomas Wright lays out events, issues, and potential developments to watch for in the months ahead.

 

I am delighted to share with you the seventh edition of the Trans-Atlantic Scorecard, a quarterly evaluation of U.S.-European relations produced by Brookings’s Center on the United States and Europe, as part of the Brookings – Robert Bosch Foundation Transatlantic Initiative.

 

This scorecard is published at a troubling and frightening time as countries the world over are locked down to flatten the curve of the COVID-19 crisis. We are currently witnessing one of those plastic moments that could profoundly affect the international order, including the United States, individual European nations, international institutions, and the trans-Atlantic alliance itself. What is striking so far is that responses to the crisis have largely been national. Very few governments have shown any appetite for international cooperation, some because they disagree with it on principle and others because they are so preoccupied with their own domestic crises.

 

Because this scorecard is no doubt the first of many that will deal with issues pertaining to COVID-19, it forms a baseline of sorts. Most of our questions relate to the crisis, but we did also include some questions on unrelated issues, as a reminder that the world has not stopped turning. One of the consequences of COVID-19 is that problems that would normally have been high up on the agenda are now likely to drop off but continue to challenge and erode the international order.

 

There are a few points worth highlighting.

 

The overall state of U.S.-European relations was mixed, with the numbers of economic and political relations down but security relations up. Respondents were fairly evenly split on whether China would increase its influence in Europe as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. An overwhelming majority felt that the EU would not impose significant budgetary or political consequences on Hungary for declaring a state of emergency that suspended indefinitely civil rights and democratic processes. On non-COVID issues, respondents felt that President Putin would survive the drop in oil prices and that the EU’s long term credibility would not be significantly damaged by the delay in accession talks for North Macedonia and Albania.

 

Looking ahead, it is hard not to be pessimistic. President Trump singled out the European Union for criticism in one of his early speeches to the nation and has shown little interest in international cooperation. A spat over whether he had tried to acquire a German company involved in research for a coronavirus vaccine angered many Germans. We will be looking to see if this pattern continues or if the United States and Europe begin to work together to rebuild the international economy and better protect themselves against future pandemics.

 

Thank you for reading the Trans-Atlantic Scorecard.

July 1

Iran exceeded limits on its stockpile of low-enriched uranium, violating the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for the first time since the deal’s signing.

July 2

Following protracted negotiations, the European Council proposed a slate of new EU leaders to take office on November 1: German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen as European Commission president, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel as president of the European Council, Spanish Foreign Affairs Minister Josep Borrell as high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, and International Monetary Fund Managing Director Christine Lagarde as president of the European Central Bank.

July 2

The United States announced that it was considering imposing tariffs on an additional $4 billion a year worth of EU imports, in addition to a $21 billion a year list announced in April, if the World Trade Organization approves tariffs over European Airbus subsidies.

July 3

David Sassoli of Italy’s center-left Democratic Party was elected president of the European Parliament by MEPs.

July 4

Off the coast of Gibraltar, U.K. troops and the Gibraltarian police seized an Iranian tanker suspected of carrying oil to Syria. Tehran called the seizure “illegal,” while the British stood by their enforcement of EU sanctions against Syria.

July 5

The U.K. Competition and Markets Authority halted Amazon’s $575 million investment into London-based food delivery company Deliveroo by opening an investigation into the investment’s impact on competition.

July 7

Iran announced that it would breach the 3.67% uranium enrichment limit set by the JCPOA.

July 7

Kyriakos Mitsotakis and his center-right party New Democracy defeated Greek Prime Minister Alex Tsipras and his left-wing Syriza in snap parliamentary elections, winning nearly 40% of the vote to Syriza’s 31.5%.

July 7

A series of leaked diplomatic cables and memos revealed that Kim Darroch, the U.K. Ambassador to the United States, had described the Trump administration as “inept” and “uniquely dysfunctional.” President Trump responded on July 8 that “we will no longer deal with” Darroch.

July 8

The German government said that it would not deploy ground troops to Syria in the fight against the Islamic State as U.S. troops partially withdraw, despite a U.S. request.

July 8

Philippe Étienne presented his credentials to President Trump as French Ambassador to the United States.

July 9

U.K. Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn suggested his party would vote “remain” in the event of a second Brexit referendum, writing to party members, “Whoever becomes the new prime minister should have the confidence to put their deal, or no deal, back to the people in a public vote. In those circumstances …. Labour would campaign for remain against either no deal or a Tory deal that does not protect the economy and jobs.”

July 9

France and the United Kingdom agreed to deploy additional troops to Syria as U.S. troops partially withdraw.

July 10

Ambassador Darroch resigned following President Trump’s criticism as well as a lack of support from Boris Johnson, the favorite to replace Theresa May as Conservative Party leader and U.K. prime minister, in a debate against Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt.

July 10

In an emergency International Atomic Energy Agency meeting, U.S. Representative Jackie Wolcott accused Iran of engaging in “brinkmanship” and “nuclear extortion.” Later that day, President Trump tweeted that the United States would increase sanctions against Iran in response to the country’s “total violation” of the deal.

July 10

BuzzFeed News published an audio recording apparently featuring Gianluca Savoini, a close ally of Italian Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, soliciting illicit funding for their far-right League party from three Russians. Salvini denied knowledge of the meeting. Italian prosecutors opened an investigation into the matter.

July 11

The French parliament approved a controversial tax on tech companies, imposing a 3% tax on annual revenues of major firms providing digital services to French consumers.

July 12

Turkey began receiving parts of the Russian S-400 air defense system, defying warnings from the United States of the negative impact on NATO and bilateral relations.

July 15

EU foreign ministers decided that Iran’s breaches of the JCPOA were reversible and not serious enough to trigger the deal’s dispute mechanism.

July 15

The EU decided to reduce its financial assistance to Turkey, break off high-level talks, and suspend negotiations on an aviation deal in response to Turkey’s drilling for gas off Cyprus. The Turkish foreign ministry said the EU’s decisions would not affect Ankara’s activities in the region.

July 16

The European Parliament confirmed German Defense Minister Ursula von der Leyen as the future president of the European Commission. In a secret ballot, Von der Leyen only received nine more votes than the 374 needed, with Poland’s Euroskeptic ruling party Law and Justice announcing its support for her just before the vote.

July 16

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire stated that France would not change its plans to tax tech companies despite U.S. threats of tariffs and legal action.

July 17

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, the leader of Germany’s Christian Democratic Union party, replaced Ursula von der Leyen as German defense minister.

July 17

The European Commission opened an antitrust investigation to assess whether Amazon’s use of independent retailers’ data breaches EU competition rules.

July 17

In response to the delivery of S-400 components, the U.S. removed Turkey from the F-35 fighter jet production consortium and canceled Ankara’s planned purchase of 100 F-35s.

July 19

Iran seized a British-flagged oil tanker in the Strait of Hormuz. U.K. Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt described the act as “state piracy” and called for a “European-led maritime protection mission to support safe passage of both crew and cargo in this vital region.”

July 19

Chancellor Merkel criticized President Trump telling four congresswomen to “go back” to their countries, saying that his statement “contradicts the strength of America.” Prime Minister May also stated that she “strongly condemned” Trump’s remarks, which she deemed “completely unacceptable.”

July 22

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s party Servant of the People won an absolute majority in parliamentary elections.

July 22

The U.K.’s Liberal Democrats elected Jo Swinson as the party’s new leader. She is the first woman to lead the party.

July 23

The U.S. Senate confirmed Mark Esper as Secretary of Defense. The position had been vacant since James Mattis’s exit on January 1, with Patrick Shanahan and then Esper serving as acting secretary.

July 24

Boris Johnson became the new U.K. Prime Minister after defeating Foreign Secretary Hunt in the final round of an election to lead the Conservative Party. In a speech, Johnson promised that Britain would leave the European Union by October 31, with or without a deal. He also promised to improve the economy, infrastructure, education, and to restore trust in democracy. Several cabinet ministers, including Chancellor of the Exchequer Philip Hammond, resigned in response to Johnson’s election; another 11 were fired by the new prime minister.

July 24

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who led the investigation into Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, whether individuals associated with the Trump campaign coordinated with the Russian government, and President Trump’s actions towards the investigations into these matters, testified before the U.S. House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees.

July 25

Ukraine seized a Russian tanker that was allegedly complicit in Russia’s seizure of three Ukrainian vessels and detention of their crews in the Kerch Strait in November 2018. The Russian tanker’s crew was released.

July 25

In a phone call, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker told Prime Minister Johnson that the EU would not renegotiate the Brexit deal, and that the current agreement was the “best and only agreement possible.”

July 25

President Trump spoke on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asking Zelenskiy to investigate former vice president and current presidential candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden, as well as the roots of the investigation into Trump’s links to Russia. Trump had put a hold on military aid to Ukraine one week prior. The call drew alarm among White House staff and led to an August 12 complaint to Congress by an intelligence community whistleblower. The complaint’s transmission was delayed but would have a major political impact by late September.

July 25

President Trump demanded that Sweden release American rapper A$AP Rocky, who had been arrested and charged with assault. The musician was released from custody a week later and was convicted and given a suspended sentence later in August.

July 27

Moscow police arrested over 1,300 protesters at a demonstration in response to several opposition politicians being barred from running in Moscow’s city council election.

July 29

Prime Minister Johnson’s spokesman suggested that the British leader wouldn’t hold talks with EU leaders until they agreed to scrap the Irish backstop in the Brexit withdrawal deal. Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar refused Johnson’s demand.

July 30

French Agriculture Minister Didier Guillaume criticized President Trump’s threat to impose tariffs on French wine in response to France’s recently introduced digital tax. He encouraged dialogue and negotiation instead.

July 31

Germany declined the United States’ request to join a U.S.-led naval security mission in the Persian Gulf. German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said that Germany did not want to see a military escalation and disagreed with President Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy. U.S. Ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell criticized Germany’s refusal. According to French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, France, Britain, and Germany were working on a “mission for monitoring and observing maritime security in the Gulf.”

July 31

The Hungarian government responded to criticism it has received for allowing the transit of Russian military vehicles through its airspace, in violation of EU sanctions. A government spokesman said the shipment, which comprised armored patrol vehicles traveling to Serbia as part of a military assistance package, was allowed to travel through Hungarian airspace because the goods were being transported in a civilian plane. Romania had initially blocked the shipment.

August 2

The United States withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty after accusing Russia of violating the terms of the agreement. The INF Treaty banned ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles with ranges between 500 and 5,500 kilometers. NATO supported the U.S. withdrawal, declaring “Russia bears sole responsibility for the demise of the Treaty.”

August 2

The U.K.’s Liberal Democrats won a byelection in Wales, reducing the Conservative Party’s majority to a single Member of Parliament.

August 6

U.S. Ambassador to Russia and former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman announced his resignation, effective in October.

August 6

President Trump met with British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in Washington.

August 7

The Italian Senate rejected the Five Star Movement’s motion to block the construction of a high-speed rail link between Turin and Lyon. League leader Matteo Salvini subsequently signaled the end of the coalition with the Five Star-League coalition.

August 16

Reports revealed that President Trump had asked his advisors if the United States could purchase Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenland’s foreign affairs ministry tweeted in response, “We’re open for business, not for sale.”

August 20

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced his resignation, preempting a vote of no confidence and bringing the Five Star-League populist coalition government to an end after nearly 15 months. An alternative governing coalition between the Five Star Movement and the center-left Democratic Party began to form.

August 20

President Trump announced via Twitter that he was cancelling a September trip to Denmark because Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen had said she was not interested in discussing the sale of Greenland. Trump and Frederiksen spoke on the phone two days later.

August 20

President Trump met with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis at the White House.

August 24-26

President Macron hosted the G-7 Summit in Biarritz. Key issues under discussion included potential U.S.-Iran negotiations, fires in the Amazon rainforest, and trade. President Trump pushed inviting Russia to return to the group, from which it was expelled after occupying Ukrainian territory, but others rejected the suggestion. Macron announced plans for a “Normandy Four” summit between Russia, Ukraine, Germany, and France, aimed at resolving the conflict in eastern Ukraine. Such a summit did not take place in September as intended by Macron, but talks continue and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy announced an agreement towards a settlement on October 1.

August 28

Prime Minister Johnson suspended Parliament from September 10 to October 14. The suspension was perceived as a tactic to limit Parliament’s ability to constrain the government on Brexit.

August 29

Italian President Sergio Mattarella gave Prime Minister Conte a mandate to form a new government coalition between the Five Star Movement and the Democratic Party.

August 30

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo named Matthew Palmer as Special Representative for the Western Balkans. Palmer will also continue to serve as Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs.

September 1

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence visited Poland and gave remarks at a commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II, after President Trump canceled a state visit to monitor Hurricane Dorian. Pence met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy following the ceremony.

September 1

In closely-watched elections in east Germany, the far-right Alternative for Germany gained ground but fell short of winning a state for the first time, coming in second to Chancellor Merkel’s Christian Democrats in Saxony (32.1% to 27.5%) and to the Social Democrats in Brandenburg (26.2% to 23.5%).

September 2-3

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Brussels and met with incoming EU leaders Ursula von der Leyen, Josep Borrell, and Charles Michel, as well as David Sassoli, the president of the European Parliament.

September 3

The U.K. Parliament passed a bill blocking a no-deal Brexit. In response, Prime Minister Johnson expelled 21 Conservative MPs who defied the government to vote in favor of the bill, including eight former ministers, from the party. Johnson had already lost his one-seat governing majority with the defection of one member to the Liberal Democrats earlier in the day.

September 3

U.S. Vice President Pence visited Ireland and met with Taoiseach Leo Varadkar as well as Foreign Minister Simon Coveney. Pence was criticized for staying at a Trump resort in Doonbeg, across the country from Dublin on the Atlantic coast.

September 4

Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced his new cabinet, with Five Star Movement leader Luigi Di Maio as foreign minister.

September 4

U.S. Vice President Pence visited Iceland and met with President Guðni Th. Jóhannesson and Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir.

September 4-6

U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper travelled to Stuttgart, Paris, and London.

September 5

U.S. Vice President Pence visited the U.K. and met with Prime Minister Johnson. Separately the same day, Prime Minister Johnson publicly stated that he’d “rather be dead in a ditch” than ask the EU for another extension to Brexit.

September 5

The U.S. State Department publicly designated Liviu Dragnea, the leader of Romania’s governing Social Democratic Party (PSD), for “significant corruption.” The designation rendered Dragnea, who is currently serving a prison sentence in Romania, ineligible for entry into the United States.

September 5

The United States and Poland released a joint declaration on 5G.

September 9

The chairs of the U.S. House Committees on Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight and Reform wrote to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and to the White House counsel expressing concern that “a growing public record indicates that, for nearly two years, the President and his personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, appear to have acted outside legitimate law enforcement and diplomatic channels to coerce the Ukrainian government into pursuing two politically-motivated investigations under the guise of anti-corruption activity,” and requesting relevant documents.

September 10

President Trump parted ways with John Bolton, his hawkish national security advisor, with conflicting accounts of whether Bolton was fired or resigned.

September 10

President-elect of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen announced the proposed members and structure of the next Commission.

September 10

President Erdoğan announced a plan to resettle over 1 million Syrian refugees in a “safe zone” in northern Syria, threatening that if the plan does not receive international support Turkey “will have to open the gates” to Europe.

September 11

The Trump administration lifted its hold on military aid to Ukraine.

September 12

The European Central Bank cut interest rates and approved bond purchases of 20 billion euros a month from November to stimulate the eurozone economy.

September 14

A World Trade Organization dispute settlement panel reportedly allowed the United States to impose punitive tariffs on the EU for its subsidies to Airbus, ending a decades-long dispute. The decision was published October 2 and allowed U.S. tariffs of up to $7.5 million annually.

September 18

Outgoing European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker addressed the European Parliament in Strasbourg, warning “the risk of a no-deal [Brexit] is very real.” The parliament passed a resolution calling for a third extension to the Brexit deadline.

September 18

Robert O’Brien, formerly the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs, was sworn in as President Trump’s fourth national security advisor in 33 months.

September 18

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence spoke on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

September 23

Spain’s parliament dissolved, triggering a November 10 election, after months of failed efforts to form a government based on the results of April’s elections.

September 23

In a joint statement at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York, Prime Minister Johnson, President Macron, and Chancellor Merkel said “it is clear for us that Iran bears responsibility” for the September 14 attack on oil processing facilities in Saudi Arabia, backing the U.S. assessment. They stressed diplomacy to de-escalate tensions and declared “the time has come for Iran to accept negotiation on a long-term framework for its nuclear programme as well as on issues related to regional security.”

September 23

In New York for UNGA, President Trump and Polish President Andrzej Duda signed a “Joint Declaration on Advancing Defense Cooperation” building on an earlier agreement from June 2019 and specifying locations for an increased U.S. military presence in Poland.

September 24

The U.K. Supreme Court ruled that Prime Minister Johnson acted unlawfully and abused his executive power in suspending Parliament. Parliament returned the next day.

September 24

Following further reporting on the substance of the intelligence community whistleblower’s complaint against President Trump, U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi announced that the House would launch an impeachment inquiry against President Trump.

September 24

The General Debate opened at UNGA. President Trump gave a nationalist speech, arguing “The future does not belong to globalists. The future belongs to patriots.” President Macron urged the United States and Iran to resume negotiations.

September 25

A memorandum of the July 25 call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was published. The same day, the two presidents met for the first time in New York and took questions.

September 26

The whistleblower’s complaint was published by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.

September 27

Kurt Volker, the U.S. State Department’s special envoy for Ukraine who was involved in the scandal, resigned ahead of giving testimony to Congressional investigators.

September 29

Former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s Austrian People’s Party won Austria’s parliamentary elections with 37 percent of the vote. Kurz’s previous government collapsed in May over a scandal involving his far-right coalition partner the Freedom Party, and he will need to a coalition partner to form a new government.

Tracking President Trump’s reported phone conversations with European leaders.

 

Between July 1 and September 30, 2019, President Trump spoke on the phone with U.K. Prime Minister Johnson three times (July 26, August 2, August 19), French President Macron twice (August 20, September 5), Danish Prime Minister Fredericksen once (August 22), Swedish Prime Minister Löfven once (July 20), Greek Prime Minister Mitsotakis once (July 9), Russian President Putin once (August 1), and Ukrainian President Zelenskiy once (July 25). He did not speak with Turkish President Erdoğan in that time frame, but they spoke on the phone on October 6 and October 18, 2019. President Trump last spoke on the phone with German Chancellor Merkel on March 22, 2019.

We track Trump’s phone calls with the leaders of France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, whether they have spoken or not, as well as other calls with European leaders of which we are aware. The White House stopped releasing readouts of the president’s calls with foreign leaders in July 2018. If we’ve missed a conversation, please give us a ring. Source: whitehouse.gov, elysee.fr, bundeskanzlerin.de, gov.uk, en.kremlin.ru, tccb.gov.tr/en, press reports.

A decade since the start of the euro crisis

 

October 2019 marks the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the eurozone crisis, when George Papandreou took office as Greek prime minister and revealed the true state of the country’s public finances. Following the economic shock of the global financial crisis, the ability of several eurozone member states to repay their sovereign debt was called into question. Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and Cyprus required external assistance. The lack of fiscal union in the Eurozone hampered the ability for European leaders to respond. While the EU created mechanisms like the European Stability Mechanism in responding to the crisis, many economists have predicted that the eurozone is still not strong enough to withstand the next crisis and argue further reform is needed.

 

 

The contours of the crisis are evident from both the GDP growth and ratio of sovereign debt to GDP of key European member states. Eurozone GDP contracted by 4.5% in 2009, and the Greek economy continued to slide until 2011, when its GDP contracted by 9.1% and its sovereign debt reached 172.1% of GDP. The spread of the crisis to larger nations like Spain and Italy, the eurozone’s fourth- and third-largest economies, is evident in 2011 and 2012. In 2012, the eurozone as a whole contracted by 0.9% while Italy contracted by 2.8%. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi’s July 2012 statement that the bank was “ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro” was widely credited with calming the markets.

 

Slow economic recovery, however, became evident in 2014 as countries like Ireland, whose debt to GDP ratio had peaked in 2012 at nearly 120%, and Spain, whose debt plateaued at around 100% after a steep ascent, exited their bailout programs. In 2015, the eurozone managed to avoid a threatened exit of Greece with uncertain consequences. Ten years on, eurozone growth has been relatively stable at around 2%, but member states including Greece, Italy, and Portugal, maintain a debt to GDP ratio two to three times that of the Stability and Growth Pact-mandated 60%.

 

 

Cohesion funds

 

On the flip side, EU cohesion funds, a subsection of European regional policy dedicated to member states whose GDP is less than 90% of the EU average, represent a natural extension of the EU’s economic success and are granted in addition to the EU’s normal regional development funding, which goes to all member states. Funded by member state contributions to the EU’s budget, the EU allotted just over €63 billion to promote “harmonious development” and even out disparities in development levels between regions.

 

 

Major beneficiaries of cohesion funds include Poland, which was slated to receive €23 billion (36% of all planned cohesion funding) from 2014-2020, Romania, which received nearly €7 billion or (close to 11%), and the Czech Republic and Hungary, which received €6 billion (nearly 10%) each.

Center on the United States and Europe Director Thomas Wright lays out events, issues, and potential developments to watch for in the months ahead.

 

I am delighted to share with you the fifth edition of the Trans-Atlantic Scorecard, a quarterly evaluation of U.S.-European relations produced by Brookings’s Center on the United States and Europe, as part of the Brookings – Robert Bosch Foundation Transatlantic Initiative.

 

The latest iteration of the scorecard shows a downtick in all four metrics for U.S.-European relations — overall, political, security, and economic. This reflects several negative events, including President Trump’s pressure on Ukraine which has led to the impeachment crisis, the transfer of resources from deterrence in eastern Europe to build the wall along the southern border, and continuing tensions over trade.

 

The one notable exception is the score for U.S.-U.K. relations, which has improved. This seems to be partly the good rapport between the president and Prime Minister Johnson — although there is little to show for it substantively thus far — and partly a natural bounce back from the low of Trump’s harsh criticism of U.K. Ambassador Sir Kim Darroch. If the prime minister’s deal passes Parliament (and at the moment of writing that remains uncertain), we will soon find out if the U.K. and the U.S. can make swift progress on trade talks.

 

We will be watching several other things in the months to come.

 

First, we will be looking at the upcoming NATO leaders summit in London in early December to see if Prime Minister Johnson can persuade President Trump to play a constructive role in the meeting or if President Trump renews his attacks on the alliance.

 

Second, will the U.S. presidential election affect transatlantic relations? For instance, we will be watching to see if Trump begins to lay the groundwork for imposing auto tariffs on German cars, perhaps as a means of strengthening his political position in the swing state of Michigan.

 

Finally, will France succeed in its efforts to broker a meeting between Trump and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, and might this lead to negotiations to replace the JCPOA?

 

Thank you for reading the Trans-Atlantic Scorecard.