00:00For more on this, we can speak now with Brando Benefe.
00:03He's an Italian member of the European Parliament with the Procresive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats,
00:08and he chairs the Parliament's delegation for relations with the United States.
00:13Welcome to DW.
00:14So, Mr. Benefe, we just heard Donald Trump there doubling down on a key theme in his new national security strategy,
00:21and that is that Europe is headed in a bad direction and needs U.S. prodding to get back on track.
00:27What do you make of that?
00:30Well, I think it's our transatlantic ally, the United States, that is, in fact, going in a bad direction
00:38in the sense that proposing such a national security strategy with such harsh and extreme sentences
00:47regarding the European Union specifically is something that is not helpful for what we have to do together.
00:55I am the chair of the delegation for the relations with the United States, and now we are following
01:03very closely the issue of the trade relations, and we see it clearly that we need to find solutions together,
01:13and these kinds of messages are hindering the complex negotiations that are now on the table.
01:20And when we see an attack on our digital sovereignty, because that's another front of this discussion,
01:30we see a backlash coming from our citizens and our governments, and some of them try to stay away from rebutting to this discourse,
01:44but it becomes impossible at some point, because in fact we have seen that the initial approach that we have seen from people like Kallas,
01:52that you have heard earlier, it has been welcomed with further tension, with further escalation.
02:02So we need to put some answer to what we have heard, because we need to reaffirm that we cannot be pushed in an angle by our transatlantic ally.
02:16Well, maybe you can help us with some of those answers.
02:18The strategy document calls Europe's path civilizational erasure through migration and censorship.
02:27First of all, were you surprised to see that kind of language in this document?
02:31This kind of language is the language I hear when I go to Washington and meet with
02:39ultra-nationalist members of Congress or with some think tanks that are in the Washington bubble.
02:50It's important to talk to these people, to have an exchange,
02:52but this was never an official way of writing of the administration.
03:01Because, to be frank, some form of interference, electoral interference, already happened.
03:08Think of the candidate and now president of Poland that was received by the White House during the electoral campaign.
03:16And if we go back, we could see the acts of Elon Musk during the UK campaign.
03:24But this is another step.
03:25It's putting in written that they want to interfere on our internal politics,
03:31because it says that there must be support for movements that resist this wrong trajectory of the European Union.
03:40And it's identifying the European Union as the problem for Europe.
03:44But unfortunately, the European Union is, in fact, the one that has to negotiate with the U.S.
03:50So, this is not helpful.
03:52I mean, in the next days, I will meet online with representatives from Congress,
03:58and I will meet also with the new ambassador of the U.S. to the EU in person,
04:05and I will convey this message.
04:07This is not helpful for what we need to do together,
04:10and be sure that we will not allow our sovereignty to be overstepped.
04:14At least I would say there are people that think so,
04:18and we will push also our governments to be a bit more assertive,
04:22because we also need to send a message to our people.
04:25Some people are starting to think that U.S. and Russia,
04:30they will find some agreement together.
04:32Look at Ukraine, but more broadly as powers.
04:37They will decide, and the U.S. only to wait and accept.
04:41This is something we can't go in terms of direction,
04:47because it will be the end of European sovereignty.
04:49As head of the EU Parliament's Delegation for U.S. Relations,
04:55how would you describe the transatlantic bond at this point,
04:59and what needs to happen in order to make it better?
05:03Well, I want to be pragmatic and realistic.
05:08I don't think we will change the course of the administration very much,
05:12although we must clarify that putting on an official text such phrases is unacceptable
05:18and must be retracted.
05:20But let's be realistic again.
05:22I think the main thing for us is to build more unity, more sovereignty,
05:26more pooled capacity of action from security to investments to common fiscal capacity
05:35to a more integrated European market,
05:38to be able to stand together in front of a complicated ally as it is today, the United States.
05:46Because if we stay fragmented, if we keep the EU as it is today,
05:49where all our government leaders are only looking for the next elections,
05:54they are ill of short-termism,
05:59I think we will never succeed in building a future for our union.
06:04And so I think it's very important that we take a step forward in sovereignty together,
06:10which means also doing what Mario Draghi was presenting in his report,
06:15not only simplifying rules, but also building common initiatives,
06:20not accepting anymore to have a veto power by one country on foreign policy issues,
06:27for example, and building more common initiatives.
06:33I think we really need to go in this direction.
06:36European Parliamentarian Brando Benefé, thank you very much.
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