Forget Boris whatever-his-name-was. The European Council on Thursday will get a 28th leader back around the table, if only briefly, when U.S. President Joe Biden logs in to participate in a virtual leaders’ summit.
Biden, whose defeat of Donald Trump left many Europeans rejoicing at the prospect of renewed transatlantic relations, will join the videoconference of EU heads of state and government at the invitation of Council President Charles Michel. He is expected to share some thoughts on — drumroll, please — U.S.-EU relations.
“Looking forward to welcome @POTUS at this week’s European Council meeting,†Michel tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “I have invited the President of the US to join our meeting for him to share his views on our future cooperation. Time to rebuild our transatlantic alliance.â€
If the broad subject matter is hardly surprising, the details could potentially get interesting — quickly.
The old club of Western allies has much to mull over these days, including a recent joint effort to sanction China over human rights violations and Beijing’s hard-nosed response. There are also disagreements barely lingering beneath the surface — on trade, on unilateral sanctions (like those the U.S. imposed over the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline), or even on coronavirus vaccine exports, which Washington has effectively blocked.
Michel announced Biden’s planned participation on Tuesday as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Brussels for his first in-person visit as Biden’s top envoy. Blinken participated in meetings with NATO foreign ministers at the alliance headquarters and sat for a live-streamed public conversation with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
Advisers to Michel said Thursday’s discussion would likely hit on several issues, including joint efforts to fight the pandemic, cooperation on confronting climate change and managing the digital transition to a high-tech economy. It was not immediately clear how long Biden would speak or remain on the videoconference listening to his 27 counterparts, not to mention Michel and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who also sit around the summit table.
A Council official said Barack Obama in 2009 was the last American president to meet with EU leaders as a group. But that meeting appeared to be part of an EU-U.S. summit meeting in Prague, held alongside an informal European Council gathering. To adopt formal conclusions, summits must be held in Brussels.
Biden is expected to join the leaders’ videoconference at 8:45 p.m. The summit was originally scheduled to be held in person but was shifted to virtual format because of a coronavirus surge in several EU countries.
As a result, the agenda has shifted as well, with a planned strategic discussion on relations with Russia no longer expected to take place. Michel will instead give a readout of a phone call he held on Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The leaders’ discussion is expected to focus partly on pandemic issues, including the EU’s troubled vaccination rollout. Von der Leyen has called in recent days for other vaccine-producing countries, namely the U.K. and the U.S., to show solidarity by allowing exports of vaccine doses to other countries, as the EU has done. But the EU criticism has largely focused on the U.K., which is competing with Europe for doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine amid production shortfalls.
