Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk and NATO's Secretary General Mark Rutte are getting heavy key roles in handling Donald Trump's return as President of the USA from a European perspective.
Tusk has immediately acted to ensure that Europe establishes a "watertight principle" regarding the war in Ukraine.
All future decisions on ending the war or freezing the conflict must be taken together with the countries on NATO's eastern flank and above all Ukraine itself, said Tusk at a press conference when Rutte visited Warsaw last week.
Tusk has announced coordinating meetings with both France and the UK. He will also attend the Nordic-Baltic summit to be held at Harpsund next week.
The Polish head of government has actively taken on a role that might otherwise be filled by his colleague in Germany. However, Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz has been sidelined due to both the ongoing government crisis and his heavily criticized phone call with Russia's President Vladimir Putin.
"A Winner"
Tusk, Rutte, and also the EU's incoming new Foreign Minister Kaja Kallas have all started hammering home the same phrase ahead of Trump's inauguration: Russia's close cooperation with North Korea, Iran, and China means that the war in Ukraine cannot be disconnected from either the conflict in the Middle East or relations with China. Everything is interconnected, and therefore it is also in the USA's interest not to let Ukraine lose.
Poland's President Andrzej Duda, with good contacts to Trump, also hopes to influence him with economic and purely emotional reasons.
He is a winner. I cannot imagine him letting Russia destroy Ukraine, where the USA has invested so much of its taxpayers' money. It's a matter of respect for taxpayers, said Duda when he also received NATO chief Rutte last week.
Orbán Waits for Peace
The concern about what the USA will do next has, together with Russian military advances and growing discontent among EU parties on the far-right and far-left, increased European pessimism about Ukraine's chances of winning.
Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán is leading the faction that wants to quickly stop both the war and all sanctions against Russia, without much regard for what Ukraine thinks. And Orbán is still Trump's closest ally in Europe.
The peace-loving president won, so now we're waiting for peace, said Orbán on Hungarian radio on Friday.
However, Orbán has not wanted to elaborate on what the peace should look like. Trump's former Foreign Minister Mike Pompeo claims that Trump will not let Russia's President Vladimir Putin "roll over" Ukraine.
It is absolutely necessary that the image becomes that the West stood up against this villain (Putin) and did not let evil prevail. I have good hopes that President Trump realizes that, said Pompeo at an appearance in New York last week.
Heavy Baltic States
Regardless of how it goes, Europe's most Russia-critical countries are holding on to positions that make them heavily influential in the debate ahead.
From January 1, Poland will become the presiding country in the EU Council of Ministers after Hungary – a huge difference when Donald Tusk will be handling the coordination instead of Orbán.
Estland's Kallas will also become the EU's new Foreign Minister, while Lithuania's Andrius Kubilius becomes the Union's first Defense Commissioner.
Mark Rutte will, for his part, try to repeat the feat of his predecessor Jens Stoltenberg in NATO as the one who keeps Trump tied to the transatlantic relationship. An important opportunity will be NATO's upcoming summit in Rutte's old hometown of The Hague in about six months.
I had an exceptionally pleasant phone call with President-elect Trump last week. We have worked very closely together in an extremely open and pleasant way, assured Rutte during his visit to Warsaw.
Corrected: In an earlier version of the text, there was an incorrect year in the fact box.
Together with Poland, the Nordic and Baltic countries make up 15 percent of the EU's population and 30 percent of the area.
Decision-wise, they make up 25 percent of the countries at summits and in the Council of Ministers (7 out of 27) and 18 percent of the votes in the EU Parliament (131 members out of 720).
Several of the countries have also received heavy posts in the next EU Commission, which is expected to take office from December 1. Estonia's Kaja Kallas will become Vice President and Foreign Minister, Finland's Henna Virkkunen will become Vice President and responsible for digital security and democracy, Lithuania's Andrius Kubilius will become Defense Commissioner, Latvia's Valdis Dombrovskis will become economically responsible, and Poland's Piotr Serafin will become the highest responsible for the budget.
Donald Tusk (born 1957) has been Poland's Prime Minister since December 2023. He was also Prime Minister 2007-14, EU Council President 2014-19, and Chairman of the European People's Party EPP 2019-22.
Mark Rutte (born 1967) has been NATO's Secretary General since October this year. He was the Netherlands' Prime Minister 2010-24 and party leader of the liberal VVD 2006-23.
Kaja Kallas (born 1977) is expected to become the EU's new Foreign Minister from December 1. She was Estonia's Prime Minister 2021-24, party leader of the liberal Reform Party 2018-24, and EU Parliament member 2014-18.
