Liana Fix, Charles A. Kupchan, Sebastian Mallaby & Matthias Matthijs
LABOTT: Thank you so much, Will. And thank you to members of the press and members of the CFR Corporate Program for this briefing on the European elections in the U.K. and France, and also the NATO summit taking place in Washington as we speak. We’re meeting as the summit is kicking off, and it’s supposed to be a great celebration—seventy-five years of the alliance. Instead, it’s really kind of turned into this gathering of beleaguered leaders, each grappling with their own political crises and the looming shadow of a potential resurgence by former President Donald Trump.
In Paris, President Macron’s snap parliamentary elections have left it with a divided parliament, and Europe’s unity at risk. Across the channel, Prime Minister Sunak’s gamble on early elections backfired, leading to a historic defeat for the Conservative Party, and a cautious embrace of Keir Starmer’s centrist Labour. And here in the U.S., if you’re turning on your TVs, you see that President Biden’s debate performance continues to spark international and domestic concern, further complicating the transatlantic alliance.
As NATO’s leaders gather under this cloud of uncertainty, obviously the specter of Donald Trump and his NATO skepticism haunts the proceedings. And European allies are bracing for these potential policy shifts. And the internal struggles within the alliance are coming to the fore, particularly over Ukraine’s path to membership. So this briefing will delve into these intricate dynamics in exploring how the NATO summit, along with those elections, will shape the geopolitical landscape.
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