Walking the corridors of the modernist maze that is the Parliament’s Strasbourg seat this week, EU lawmakers are seemingly too busy to think about the upcoming US elections.
With the EU selecting its own executive at the same time as the US campaign reaches its climax – commissioner hearings are scheduled on 5 November, US polling day – little bandwidth is left for entertaining the thought of either a Trump or a Harris win.
But scheduling conflicts and time constraints only go part way to explaining why MEPs appear less opinionated on events across the pond than in 2016 or 2020.
Then, EU leaders awaited the outcome of the US elections with bated breath. The contrast between Trump’s isolationism and Clinton’s relative internationalism, and what they meant for Europe, could not have been clearer.
This time, less so. There is a growing sense that, no matter the result, the impact for Europe is a forgone conclusion.
As one senior parliamentary source told Decoded: “With Trump, it will be quick and painful. With Harris, it will be slow – and painful”.
Few are willing to speak on the record, but many in the Brussels bubble seem to draw some positive lessons from Trump’s first term. The rambunctious style of the former president might have frustrated Brussels, but it did help decision makers wake up and smell the coffee.
Trump’s reign made Eurocrats realise they cannot count on the US – not least when it comes to defense and trade cooperation. The EU had better stand on its own. ‘Strategic autonomy’, as we now know it, was born.
Parliamentary sources bring up the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) as a prime example of how Joe Biden’s policies towards the EU did not put Europeans in a much better spot than during the Trump years.
And now, whoever wins the White House next month, the EU's focus will remain sharply on its own competitiveness, parliamentary sources tell Decoded.
Adding further to lawmakers’ reluctance to talk US politics is how transatlantic party alliances put some EU politicians in a predicament.
The socialists and Greens are happy to endorse vice-president Harris, but others seem more on the fence.
Most notably, the Parliament’s largest group, the centre-right EPP, finds itself between a rock and a hard place. As the de facto leader of Europe’s collective right-wing, the choice should seem obvious, but Trump’s campaign of divisive rhetoric and unambiguous Ukraine policy have put the group in an awkward position.
Moving further to the right, the far-right Patriots appreciate Trump’s wholehearted endorsements of Hungary’s Viktor Orbán – and feelings are mutual.
But despite these divisions, that four or eight years ago might have seen hours of debate in the hemicycle, EU lawmakers remain blinkered, plodding ahead with the process to put a new executive into office.
The Draghi report paints a bleak picture of the scale of the bloc’s challenges in keeping up with global competitors. The feeling in Strasbourg this week is that the occupant of the White House is unlikely to make this easier.
However, behind the veneer of quiet indifference as to who occupies the White House, there is awareness that, for better or worse, Europe’s future and the turbulence of US politics cannot be totally decoupled.
MEPs may not be holding their breath ahead of 5 November, but political earthquakes can be felt across the Atlantic.
