Eurocrat Accuses Trump Admin of Interference over Censorship Criticisms
BRUSSELS (AP) — A senior European Union official on Monday warned the United States against interfering in European affairs and said only European citizens can decide which parties should govern them.
European Council President Antonio Costa’s remarks came in reaction to the Trump administration’s new national security strategy, which was released Friday and portrays European allies as weak while offering tacit support to far-right political parties.
It is “good” that the strategy presents European countries as allies, but “allies do not threaten to interfere in the domestic political choices of their allies,” Costa said.
“What we cannot accept is the threat of interference in European political life. The United States cannot replace European citizens in choosing the right or wrong parties,” he said in Paris at the Jacques Delors Institute, a think tank.
The strategy criticized European freedom of expression and migration policy. U.S. allies in Europe face the “prospect of civilizational erasure,” the document says, raising doubts about their long-term reliability as U.S. partners.
But Costa, who chairs summits of the EU’s 27 national leaders, said “Europe’s history has taught us that there can be no freedom of expression without freedom of information.”
The former Portuguese prime minister also warned that “there will never be freedom of expression if citizens’ freedom of information is sacrificed for the goals of tech oligarchs in the United States.”
The security strategy is the administration’s first since President Donald Trump returned to office in January. It is a radical departure from the path set by President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration, which sought to reinvigorate U.S. alliances.
This comes as the United States seeks to end Russia’s nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine, a goal that the National Security Strategy says is in America’s vital interest.
But the text makes clear that the United States wants to improve relations with Russia after years of Moscow being treated as a global pariah and that ending the war is a core U.S. interest to “restore strategic stability with Russia.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the document “absolutely corresponds to our vision.” During the war, Russia worked to drive a wedge between NATO allies, particularly between the United States and Ukraine’s main backers in Europe.
“If we read the part about Ukraine carefully, we can understand why Moscow shares this view,” Costa said. “The goal of this strategy is not a just and lasting peace. It is only about an end to hostilities and the stability of relations with Russia.”
“Everyone wants stable relations with Russia,” he added, but “we cannot have stable relations with Russia if it remains a threat to our security.”
Senior European officials and intelligence officials have warned that Russia may be able to launch an attack elsewhere in Europe within three to five years if it defeats Ukraine.
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