EU must stop treating US as its main ally – Borrell

The bloc’s former top diplomat has pointed to growing tensions, including spats over Europe’s digital rules

The EU should stop considering the US its main ally, the bloc’s former top diplomat Josep Borrell says, as Washington and Brussels are at loggerheads over digital policies and control over Greenland.

In an interview with Spain’s Antena 3 broadcaster last week, Borrell said he “doesn’t know what more [US President Donald] Trump needs to do for us to understand that the United States and Europe are not the allies they once were.”

Borrell also commented on Trump’s concern that Europe’s nuclear powers – France and the UK – could one day have governments that are not friendly to Washington. “There are many people who don’t want to accept this reality” because it is still assumed that the US is the EU’s main ally, “but it no longer is,” the ex-diplomat said.

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He also pointed to US visa bans on five Europeans, including former internal market commissioner Thierry Breton, whom Washington officials have accused of spearheading legislative efforts to discriminate against US tech giants.

The crux of the issue centers on the EU’s Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act, which impose strict obligations on large online platforms, which in practice are mostly US-based. However, EU officials have defended the legislation, portraying it as a way to defend European sovereignty.

Pivoting to the US attack on Venezuela, Borrell suggested that America’s military intervention should be “a lesson for Europeans” because “if we want to exist in the world, [we] should also have a certain capacity to defend ourselves and not expect the American friend to defend us.”

Borrell’s comments also come as Trump doubled down on his claim that the US should “absolutely” secure control of Greenland for national security reasons, with the White House suggesting that employing the US military “is always an option” in pursuing that goal.

The remarks have drawn strong pushback from Denmark, which exercises sovereignty over the strategic island, and European capitals, which stressed that “Greenland belongs to its people.” Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen also warned that “if the United States chooses to attack another NATO country militarily, then everything stops.”