If you were Trump, how would you treat the EU?

[Suff]

After all it has an embassy and an ambassador to the US. Something Obama did not see fit to question or regularise.

Personally I think I'd invite them to join NATO and recognise their embassy as the legitimate entry point to the US for all EU member states!

Surely that would be "support" for the EU. Would it not?

[Workingman]

Given that the EU does not have an 'Embassy' or an 'Ambassador' to the United States I think that I would continue dealing with the 28 EU members much as they have always been.

When it comes to trade, I think that I would look at an organisation whose members have a population of 500 million, most of whom are much richer than those in the rest of the world, and think that there could be some good deals to be done.

Then I would call Vladimir and tell him: "Hands off, it's ours".

[Suff]

Given that the EU does not have an 'Embassy' or an 'Ambassador' to the United States.

I did check what they were calling themselves before I posted.

You note the site mentions the Lisbon Treaty of 2009, which enacted the EU “foreign service”, the EU “Foreign minister” and EU “embassies” to the world at large. Of course the EU uses different names, but those are the roles.

They are calling themselves Ambassadors. They are creating an Army. They _should_ be recognised

Of course, typical of the “rolling donut” of the EU, the picture is extremely confused. But one thing comes very clearly out of the article.

The Lisbon Treaty also explicitly granted legal personality to the Union

The study did identify the fact that the whole thing is a mess. The states have conferred sole rights in some parts of sovereignty and have retained them in others. Which then makes it difficult for the EU to guarantee diplomatic reciprocity. They worked around it in the end.

There has to come a point at which the other countries in the world make a stand and force the EU to make a clear statement about what it is and what it is not. Today the member states are no longer sovereign as we understand sovereignty, they are semi sovereign. A bit like principalities under a monarch. That is the closest historical precedent.

In history you did not negotiate treaties with the principalities, but with the monarch.

I was partly TIC and partly serious in my OP. The EU is developing a military capability and has diplomatic missions to the world. To me that means the EU should be invited to join NATO. Otherwise we have a non aligned military force in the heart of Europe, between NATO and the Russian Federation. A non aligned force which could cause all kinds of havoc to the situation.

As to the UN. At some point someone has to make a statement about these “principalities” and their status in the world. Someone needs to ask the brutal and honest questions. Either the states in the EU are sovereign and the EU is a trading block, or they are not and the EU is a country to which they are aligned. We can’t keep on with this whole “we’re special” situation where the nations of the EU try to both wield the power of the EU and the individuality of their country.

My TIC part was about Trump. He really should support the EU totally and “help” it to achieve its goals. Nothing is more certain to break up and dissolve the EU than that… Could you imagine the US made up of 50 squabbling countries, all vying to compete in the world and have embassies in the world, trying to talk with one voice and all 50 voices all at the same time? That is how the EU looks to the world since the Lisbon Treaty.

[Workingman]

I also checked and though David O'Sullivan might style himself as Ambassador he is no more a traditional ambassador than Ambassadors Geri Halliwell or Angelina Jolie.

Nor does his 'title' change the European Union Delegation to the United States into an Embassy.

And I did pick up on your TIC comment about the EU and NATO, but as the EU does not have any armed forces of its own it was always a non-starter. Many EU member states are individual members of NATO, but Austria, Cyprus, Finland, Ireland, Malta and Sweden are not.

[AliasAggers]

This is getting interesting.

Your move now, Suff.

[Workingman]

Your move now, Suff.

I have one, regarding the UN.

The EU does not have a seat at the UN, it has Observer status, as do other organisations. It has extended rights on a small menu of topics, but only because all EU members have have elected it to speak on their behalf, but it has no vote. Those rights can also be claimed by any organisation such as the Arab League, Melanesia or OPEC, providing they too have been elected to speak for all, but only on certain matters and they, too, do not get a vote.

[Suff]

Just a few things to iron out.

If you read my link which tries to reason the legal rights of the "delegations" of the EU, you would see that they have significant powers which have been devolved to them by the "member states". OK they don't have all the power, yet, but the powers they do have are substantial.

On the "embassy" front, I looked up the wiki page for a "diplomatic mission". Which has a very interesting statement.

strictly speaking, it is the diplomatic delegation itself that is the embassy

The previous article I linked also covered the difficulty of reciprocal diplomatic rights, which they decided, in the end, would be hosted by the country which hosts the EU institutions. So the EU diplomats offer reciprocal diplomatic rights from the Belgian government.

So the "ambassador" is exactly the correct term as the "Ambassador" is an accepted EU Diplomat who heads the Diplomatic Delegation from the EU to the US.

In other words, it's an Embassy in actuality but not called so in order for the "member states" not to get their nose out of joint with their populations...

As for the whole EU Army bit. Useful to read a few snippets of what is going on there. This is over and above the Commission Gnome demanding that the EU sets up a military HQ in order to have correct command and control of it's current forces. Note, not future forces but current.

[Workingman]

It can be spun any which way, quoting all sorts of Treaties and Wiki articles, but the realpolitik is that the EU does not have a US Embassy, a proper 'Ambassador', an Armed Forces nor a seat at the UN.

What it might like to have in the future is an entirely different matter, and it definitely will be subject to opposition from many quarters, but to claim it has them now is part of the Euromyth.

As is the Duthch /German thing. In another report the Netherlands says: "Another aspect of the maritime cooperation is the integration of the German Naval Force Protection Battalion (Seebataillon) into the Royal Netherlands Navy. The German battalion consists of several hundred soldiers with special capacities, including divers, amphibious reconnaissance and de-mining experts. This German unit will come under Dutch command, just as Dutch units have in the past been placed under German command."

It is cooperation, not takeover, and is about as militarily effective as the Bridlington Queen. It is also noticeable that the EU has no control, none, over the military budgets of any of its members.

[Suff]

What it might like to have in the future is an entirely different matter, and it definitely will be subject to opposition from many quarters, but to claim it has them now is part of the Euromyth.

True but wouldn't it go "so" much better if Trump "helped"? Jus as they are asking him to.

It is cooperation, not takeover, and is about as militarily effective as the Bridlington Queen.

The phrase chocolate fireguard came to mind. Or, as we said in the REME, a plastic spanner. However it's not quite "cooperation" when you replace your reporting lines with reporting lines from another country and that other country takes over a large chunk of the funding. That is a long way past cooperation. We cooperate on a lot of NATO and EU missions. Our command and control structure cooperates with theirs and we fund it.

Always fun to think about the possibilities though. Because I'd like to stop this creeping USSR any way I can not just for the UK but for all those European friends I have who are totally clueless.