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.
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.
