Future Europe Initiative

Macron’s interview is not about NATO or the United States, but rather about Europe. His interview reflects deep worries that Europe is gradually being on the menu of global power politics and about the means to ensure that it is at the table instead.

The selection process and presentation have been received relatively well and signal a new Commission leadership adept at messaging and politics. But questions remain whether Ursula von der Leyen can make the complex Commission work

By tying the national interest to unilateral territorial demands, the US president puts himself in the same camp as Vladimir Putin. Putin’s strategy is also dismissive of international rules and the sovereignty of smaller nations, and appears to hold that only through force and intimidation can Russia advance its interests.

The new European Commission will take office on November 1, 2019, at a time of intensifying great power competition and new strain for transatlantic relations. This memo gathers the contributions of several Atlantic Council experts on a variety of issues such as defense, foreign policy, trade, and energy policy

In this issue brief, Kenneth Propp, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Future Europe Initiative, examines the existing transatlantic data-transfer mechanisms, the landmark court case that could invalidate them, and the divergent US and EU approaches to data transfers across borders and privacy standards.

After a century of work together, of tragedy and achievement, Central Europe and the United States have much to celebrate and defend, but also much to do.