Trump's strategy to turn the EU into a new Wild West
The first piece of Europe's protective shield fell this week, quietly, hidden amid the usual noise generated by Trump's headlines. Under the banner of "debureaucratization," the European Union has reached an agreement to "simplify" corporate sustainability laws. It might seem futile, but as European law experts have been warning for months...like Professor Alberto AlemannoThis is the first symptom of a dangerous dismantling of the structures that protect our fundamental rights and values as European citizens.
The original laws were meant to ensure that corporations operating in Europe could not destroy the planet or exploit their workers with impunity. But the new "simplification" leaves the vast majority of companies exempt: between eight and nine out of ten no longer have to comply. The problem is not only what, but how.
The pressure to dismantle these laws was brewing on the other side of the Atlantic. For months now, the The United States, major oil companies, and the government of QatarThey are deploying aggressive lobbying tactics in the heart of Europe. The US ambassador to the EU, Andrew Puzder, saidto theFinancial Timesthat "Europe should repeal the directive that is killing growth"It hinted that otherwise, the EU would find it much more difficult to buy US liquefied natural gas. A geopolitical blackmail that wasn't very diplomatic.
"Debureaucratization" is a major obsession of Trump's and is already shaping the European agenda, strongly championed by the Eurosceptic far right while centrist forces embrace it with complicity and a certain impotence. It's no coincidence that these sustainability lawsthose who last month blew up the European Parliament's cordon sanitaire for the first timein a non-symbolic vote.
Behind this maneuver there is avery strong business lobbywho wants to turn Europe into his new Wild West. But by "debureaucratizing" the EU, our protective shields are also being dismantled. The way in which this simplification has been approved—hastily, without consultations or guarantees—has been harshly criticized by civil society, the European Ombudsman, and a hundred experts in European law who denounce that the EU is violating its own fundamental treaties.
The problem is that after this one, others will follow. The dominoes are already perfectly positioned to fall: the Commission has already proposed "simplifying" the laws that protect our privacy and online data, or those that defend us from theharmful effects of certain chemicalsAnd the European People's Party has already broken the taboo of making deals with the far right.
Trump, therefore, has already found a way to "debureaucratize" Europe, and it is the EU itself that is doing his work for him. Without firewalls against the far right and without forces capable of defending the European project with conviction, foreign companies and American oligarchs (and their political ideas) will be able to roam freely throughout Europe and continue enriching themselves in what is still today the world's largest single market with more than 450 million citizens. Sorry, consumers.