Selmayr Talks Europe, Multilateralism and Great Power Competition
As part of a visit to Washington DC (6–8 March 2019) that included a meeting with President Trump’s top economic advisor Larry Kudlow (to discuss the followup to the Joint EU-US Statement from July 2018) and a round-table at the Atlantic Council on the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), European Commission Secretary-General Martin Selmayr spoke at The Brookings Institution on “Europe, Multilateralism and Great Power Competition.”
At this public event organized under the Brookings — Robert Bosch Foundation Transatlantic Initiative on upon his arrival on 6 March, Martin Selmayr stressed that “we are at a transformative moment of the global system. As President Juncker said, it is the ‘hour of European sovereignty,’ a shared sovereignty that makes us stronger.” He called on the attendance to “keep faith in the EU,” and said that Europeans were capable of great achievements whenever there was strong political will. He also said that “Europeans don’t like the notion of great power competition, as we believe in cooperation. But we also have to make sure that no foreign power interferes in our upcoming European elections.”
Martin Selmayr was then joined on stage by Tom Wright, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on the U.S. and Europe at The Brookings Institution, before taking questions from the audience.
Listen to our EU NOW Podcast on the event here or watch here. And you can also engage on Twitter using @EUintheUS #BBTI #USEurope.
