EU Now

The EU Delegation was in Nashville, Tennessee in early August to engage with hundreds of legislators and staff from all 50 US states at the annual Legislators Summit. organized by the National Council of State Legislatures. EU Delegation Programs Officer Tim Rivera spoke with legislators from Hawaii, Wisconsin, Colorado, Washington, and Germany about what issues are most important to them in the EU-US relationship and where they would welcome further transatlantic cooperation.

Victoria Marum (former House Congressional Liaison Officer for the Navy; Vice President, Cornerstone Government Affairs) talks about transatlantic counterterrorism on the battlefield, with a particular focus on tracking foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria, with John Demers (Assistant Attorney General for National Security, U.S. Department of Justice), Ambassador Nathan A. Sales (Coordinator for Counterterrorism, U.S. Department of State), Russ Travers (Deputy Director of the National Counterterrorism Center), and Wil van Gemert, Deputy Executive Director, EUROPOL.

Lara Seligman (Pentagon Correspondent, Foreign Policy magazine) discusses progress made in fostering EU-NATO cooperation in recent years and the way ahead with Major General William B. Hickman (Director, Strategic Plans and Policy, NATO Allied Command Transformation), Diego de Ojeda (European Commission Representative to the Political and Security Committee of the European Union), Johann Schmid (Director for Strategy and Defence at the European Centre of Excellence for Countering Hybrid Threats), and Andrew Winternitz (Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Policy, U.S. Department of Defense).

Senior Media Advisor Kasper Zeuthen sat down with Marie-Anne Coninsx, the EU's Ambassador Large for the Arctic, during her recent visit to Washington, D.C. for a wide-ranging discussion about the EU's role in the region, Arctic transatlantic cooperation, rapidly melting ice, the threat of militarization, and what that Arctic spirit is all about. 

Senior Media Advisor Kasper Zeuthen sat down with Sabine Weyand, EU's new Director-general for Trade, to get an update on EU-US trade on the one year anniversary of the joint statement by President Trump and President Juncker, and get her insights on why the EU has been so busy striking new trade agreements, how the tech war is the new trade war, addressing Chinese market distortions, and what lessons learned as a Brexit negotiator she can apply in her new position. 

Rachel Ellehuus (Deputy Director and Senior Fellow with the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies) moderates a panel on "Developing a more Capable EU: Transatlantic Burden Sharing, PESCO and the Future of European Defense" at the EU-Foreign Policy Defense Forum, with Jorge Domecq (Chief Executive of the European Defence Agency), Ambassador Tina Kaidanow (Senior Advisor, International Cooperation, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment), Pierre Delsaux (Deputy Director General, DG GROW, European Commission), Brigadier General Heinz Krieb (Director of Concepts & Capability Directorate of the European Union Military Staff of the European External Action Service), and Elbridge Colby (Director of the Defense Program, Center for a New American Security).

Derek Chollet (Executive VP for Security and Defense Policy at the German Marshall Fund of the United States) talks about trends, threats and opportunities related to European security with Pedro Serrano (Deputy Secretary General for Common Security and Defense Policy and Crisis Response at the European External Action Service), Julie Fisher (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Europe and the EU), and Edward Randall Royce (former U.S. Representative and Chair of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs) during the EU-Foreign Policy Defense Forum.

Senior Communications Officer Martin Caudron sits down with Peter Wagner, Head of the European Commission's Support Group for Ukraine, to discuss about the EU's support to political and economic reform in Ukraine and new opportunities for Ukrainians ahead of the EU-Ukraine Summit (July 8, 2019).

Senior Media Advisor Kasper Zeuthen sat down with Wil van Gemert, Deputy Executive Director of Europol, during his recent visit to Washington, D.C. to discuss a significant increase in transatlantic cooperation in the fight against terrorism and crime, how Europol supports law enforcement officers across the European Union, how technology is changing the nature of crimes, dealing with the return of foreign fighters and online radicalization, taking down darknet rings,  and how ordinary citizens help Europol track down offenders in child abuse cases.