Jean-Claude Juncker: EU Has No Alternative to Cooperation With US

EU Commission’s President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Friday that the bloc has no other alliance option but the one with the United States, saying that Brussels will be working closely together with Washington.

BERLIN (Sputnik) — The European Union has no alternative to trans-Atlantic relations and cooperation with US and Canada, EU Commission’s President Jean-Claude Juncker said on Friday in an interview with the Spiegel newspaper.

"I am a champion of trans-Atlantic relations and I do not believe there is any other option available to us than working closely together with America — including Canada. There is no other alliance option, but the same is true for the US," Juncker said.

However, he stressed that the current US President Donald Trump’s views on politics differ from those of the European Union.

"Putting it in the noblest way possible, his understanding of politics is a little different from ours here in Europe. The way he acts forces us Europeans to take on a new responsibility. We are not standing with our backs up against the wall, but, to put it as pithily as the German chancellor [Angela Merkel] has: We can no longer rely on the US the way we could in the past," Juncker said.

Following the G7 summit in Italy held in late May, which was the first G7 summit attended by Trump, Merkel said that Europe could no longer rely on others and has to take its destiny in its own hands.