Mike Pence: US committed to defence and security cooperation with EU

US Vice President Mike Pence has said America will continue to "show strong commitment" to cooperating with the EU over Europe's defence and security.

Mike Pence and Donald Tusk | Photo credit: Press Association

By Martin Banks

Martin Banks is a senior reporter at the Parliament Magazine

20 Feb 2017


Speaking in Brussels on Monday, Pence sought to allay fears that the new Trump administration will row back on decades of US support for European security interests.

He said that "whatever differences" may exist between the two sides, the US was "committed to continuing and expanding" its collaboration with Europe on collective security.

Standing alongside European Council President Donald Tusk, he said, "Our support for the EU will remain steadfast and enduring."

Pence was on a whistle-stop European tour, which included attending the Munich security conference on Saturday and meetings with EU foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini and Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel.

He recalled the "horrific" suicide attack on Brussels nearly one year ago, saying, "We will do all we can to make sure that such attacks never happen again."

Pence also appealed to "both sides" in the Ukraine conflict to honour the terms of the Minsk accord, adding that the US "will hold Russia to account" on its commitment to find a peaceful resolution to the bloody war.

Speaking at the same news conference and after a formal meeting with Pence, Tusk told reporters that on EU-US relations and their common security, "too many new and sometimes surprising opinions have been voiced recently for us to pretend that everything is as it used to be.

"Today I heard words which are promising for the future, words which explain a lot about the approach of the new administration in Washington. I repaid our guest by offering honesty in my assessment of the situation; I shared our concerns and hopes."

Tusk said that "given that I am an incurably pro-American European who is fanatically devoted to transatlantic cooperation, I can afford to be even more outspoken."

He said that at the meeting he had asked Pence "directly" if he shared his opinions on "three key matters", the international order, security and the attitude of the new US administration towards the EU.

Tusk said, "In reply to these three matters, I heard today from Vice President Pence three times 'yes'. After such a positive declaration, both Europeans and Americans must simply practise what they preach."

The former Polish Prime Minister also indirectly addressed the comments by President Trump who branded Nato as obsolete.

On this Tusk said, "Our security is based on Nato and the closest possible transatlantic cooperation. We must work together to modernise the forms of this cooperation. 

"Some of them should indeed be improved. But we should also, I believe, agree on one thing: the idea of Nato is not obsolete, just like the values which lay at its foundation are not obsolete."

He went on, "We are counting, as always in the past, on the United States' wholehearted and unequivocal support for the idea of a united Europe. The world would be a decidedly worse place if Europe were not united."

 

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