Episode 115: The U.S. Election and Germany in Europe
Almut Möller
European Policy Centre
Almut Möller joined the EPC as Director for European and Global Affairs and Head of the Europe in the World programme in July 2024. She is a political scientist with professional experience in both think tanks and government. Her areas of expertise include EU institutions and politics, foreign and security policy, and multilevel governance, and she has published widely in these fields.
Prior to joining the EPC, she served as State Secretary and Plenipotentiary of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (2019-2024), representing the city state in Berlin, and at the European Union. In that capacity, she oversaw both the Berlin and Brussels representation offices and was a member of the Conference of Europe Ministers of the German Länder. She was also in charge of Hamburg's international relations, and the point of contact for the diplomatic and consular corps.
Before that, Almut was the Head of the Berlin office of the European Council on Foreign Relations (2015-2019), headed the Europe program at the German Council on Foreign Relations (2010-2015), and worked as an independent political analyst based in London (2008-2010). She started her career in think tanks as a researcher at the Centre for Applied Policy Research (C.A.P) at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich (1999-2008).
Almut was a guest researcher at Renmin University of China in Beijing (2006), Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo (2007), and at the American-German Institute (AGI) at Johns Hopkins University in Washington D.C. (2008).
She was a 2016-2017 participant in AICGS’ project “A German-American Dialogue of the Next Generation: Global Responsibility, Joint Engagement,” sponsored by the Transatlantik-Programm der Bundesrepublik Deutschland aus Mitteln des European Recovery Program (ERP) des Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi).
Jeff Rathke
President of AGI
Jeffrey Rathke is the President of the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies at the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC.
Prior to joining AICGS, Jeff was a senior fellow and deputy director of the Europe Program at CSIS, where his work focused on transatlantic relations and U.S. security and defense policy. Jeff joined CSIS in 2015 from the State Department, after a 24-year career as a Foreign Service Officer, dedicated primarily to U.S. relations with Europe. He was director of the State Department Press Office from 2014 to 2015, briefing the State Department press corps and managing the Department's engagement with U.S. print and electronic media. Jeff led the political section of the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur from 2011 to 2014. Prior to that, he was deputy chief of staff to the NATO Secretary General in Brussels. He also served in Berlin as minister-counselor for political affairs (2006–2009), his second tour of duty in Germany. His Washington assignments have included deputy director of the Office of European Security and Political Affairs and duty officer in the White House Situation Room and State Department Operations Center.
Mr. Rathke was a Weinberg Fellow at Princeton University (2003–2004), winning the Master’s in Public Policy Prize. He also served at U.S. Embassies in Dublin, Moscow, and Riga, which he helped open after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Mr. Rathke has been awarded national honors by Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, as well as several State Department awards. He holds an M.P.P. degree from Princeton University and B.A. and B.S. degrees from Cornell University. He speaks German, Russian, and Latvian.
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Peter S. Rashish
Vice President; Director, Geoeconomics Program
Peter S. Rashish, who counts over 30 years of experience counseling corporations, think tanks, foundations, and international organizations on transatlantic trade and economic strategy, is Vice President and Director of the Geoeconomics Program at AICGS. He also writes The Wider Atlantic blog.
Mr. Rashish has served as Vice President for Europe and Eurasia at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, where he spearheaded the Chamber’s advocacy ahead of the launch of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. Previously, Mr. Rashish was a Senior Advisor for Europe at McLarty Associates, Executive Vice President of the European Institute, and a staff member and consultant at the International Energy Agency, the World Bank, UNCTAD, the Atlantic Council, the Bertelsmann Foundation, and the German Marshall Fund.
Mr. Rashish has testified before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on International Monetary Policy and Trade and the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Europe and Eurasia and has advised three U.S. presidential campaigns. He has been a featured speaker at the Munich Security Conference, the Aspen Ideas Festival, and the Salzburg Global Seminar and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Jean Monnet Institute in Paris and a Senior Advisor to the European Policy Centre in Brussels. His commentaries have been published in The New York Times, the Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Policy, and The National Interest, and he has appeared on PBS, CNBC, CNN, and NPR.
He earned a BA from Harvard College and an MPhil in international relations from Oxford University. He speaks French, German, Italian, and Spanish.
The year 2025 will bring not only a new U.S. administration but also a new EU Commission. What will these changes mean for Germany and the United States, and what aspirations does Chancellor Scholz’ coalition have for the European Union? Almut Möller, Director for European and Global Affairs at the European Policy Centre, joins the Zeitgeist to discuss. What would different election outcomes mean for European action on competitiveness and security? How does President Ursula von der Leyen’s ambitious Commission align with Germany’s interests?
Host
Jeff Rathke, President, AGI
Guests
Almut Möller, Director for European and Global Affairs, European Policy Centre
Peter Rashish, Vice President and Director, Geoeconomics Program, AGI
Transcript
Jeff Rathke
Welcome to all of the listeners to the Zeitgeist. We have today as our guest someone who is well-known to us and perhaps to some of you out there as well. Her name is Almut Möller. Almut, Welcome.
Almut Möller
Thank you very much, Jeff.
Jeff Rathke
And Peter Rashish, director of the Geoeconomics program and vice president of AGI, is with us, too. Hello, Peter.
Peter Rashish
Hello, Jeff.
Jeff Rathke
Almut Möller is director for European and Global Affairs at the European Policy Centre. She is a former state secretary and representative of the city of Hamburg, representing Hamburg in Berlin, in Brussels, and internationally for five years, and she just finished up that job this past summer. And before that, she’s been in a number of positions at think tanks as well as a researcher in places as varied as Beijing, Cairo, and Washington, DC. We won’t ask you to tell us which of those places you like best! Almut is now splitting her time between Brussels and Berlin, because Brussels is, of course, the home of the EPC. We’re talking today about the impact of the U.S. presidential election on Germany and Germany’s leadership role within the European Union. Important, of course, a few days before the U.S. elections—we are speaking on November 1st, the Friday before the November 5th vote—and also as a new European Commission is taking office, the second term for Ursula von der Leyen and with a new cabinet. So, there we are. We are looking at a historic election coming up next week, Almut. So, let’s start there. In your previous role as State Secretary for the city-state of Hamburg, you sat in the Bundesrat, in the second chamber of the German legislature, and you were there for all sorts of debates, touching on foreign affairs and domestic. How do you think Germans—official Germany especially—view a Trump versus a Harris presidency? Do people see stark differences and significant consequences for Germany? Or I sometimes hear from some Germans who sort of dismiss both sides as: They’re both kind of protectionist. They’re both looking to Asia instead of to Europe, and while of course there’s a difference between them, the main lines for Germany and Europe would be the same in either case. How do you think? How do you see it and how do you think people in decision-making roles see it?
Almut Möller
Well, Jeff, first and foremost, thank you very much for having me. It’s great to be with you and Peter and always good to be with AGI. Washington and my time there was very formative for me. I do say that as someone who’s not a trained transatlanticist, and why do I say that at the beginning, before I respond to your question? It shows you that I’ve learned to think about the world through the lens of Europeanization, which was laden with hope in the 1990s. I never neglected at all the role that the United States has played in that reunification. The opposite. I was always grateful and that never made me a take-it-for-granted transatlanticist, either. And speaking of my time in the Bundesrat, where I had the honor of representing the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg in the plenary on political guidance of the regional government, during that time, we were also traveling to the United States. And I just want to mention that one of the most formative things I felt in my life was when I had the honor of participating in the laying of the wreath in Arlington National Cemetery. I had been there before, but this was really the first time when I felt how extraordinary it has been that successive U.S. administrations have given not only time and attention, but also American’s lives, have devoted them to Europe, to the freedom of Europe. And I felt when I was standing there, looking over this iconic place, that Americans know well—and some Europeans do as well—how big this is and how we should really not take any of this attention for granted.
During my time in the Bundesrat, and in the interplay between the national government and the federal states, I observed that there was always a great deal of interest in things transatlantic. Germany cares about what’s happening in the United States. That is because to a great extent they also rely on the security that the United States helps us provide. I was there when Russia started its war of aggression. There were many debates and votes, even though the federal states are not in charge of foreign affairs and security policy, but a lot of discussions and debates about how to support Ukraine and the transatlantic angle here. This is a Chamber that I think is really showing how both on transatlantic affairs, but also on European collaboration at large, Germany, still at the level of the sixteen governments of the federal states, is one where you see a lot of consensus.
But what I also saw in the last months was that this consensus was starting to crumble visibly in elections in federal states in Germany in the course of this summer. Where suddenly a new party made it into significant portions of vote, the Bündnis Sahra Wagenknecht, where suddenly the AfD is reaping votes where citizens care deeply about the question of U.S. presence in in Germany. This has become a lot more divisive these days, and this concerns me. Because it shows that we still have to continue to make the case if we want to win public opinion for keeping Europe safe, to do that also with military force. And this is something we cannot take for granted. I feel at this point in time and looking at this very important vote in the U.S. next week, I think we really need to understand that a lot is at stake and that regardless of who makes it in the end, I believe—and this is how I feel it in the German context here—regardless who makes it in the race to the White House, this is significant for Europe and for Germany because the U.S. started to change over time. And while we find Kamala Harris and her view of the world and her style of interaction more comforting and more comfortable, it is nothing that people in Berlin in this sort of “Berlin Bubble” would see as an easy ride. But of course Mr. Trump in the White House would create an environment where a lot of questions would be raised with more urgency and with a greater fear over transatlantic relations. But by and large, what we’ve seen over time is that we have also matured in a way in Germany and Europe to see that: don’t take the U.S. for granted.
Jeff Rathke
Let’s then bring in the other big external power whose actions affect Europe. You’ve spoken to about Russia, but let’s talk about China. That looms large for Europe. The German government has a China strategy, something it had never done before. It’s connected to the German national security strategy, which is also something being done for the first time by this government. And we’ve seen just in recent weeks the ways in which China policy is contentious within Europe. The German government voted against the countervailing tariffs on electric vehicles from China. Those were approved and have now gone into effect. And so, this is, I think, sometimes difficult for Americans to understand and put into context. On the one hand, Germany seems to be very exposed to China. On the other hand, it’s hard to see in some cases how the policy is really changing. So how do you interpret that for our listeners?
Almut Möller
This is a very good question and a complicated one. From a transatlantic perspective, just to start off with, I believe Europe at large—and I’ll come to Germany in a minute—is trying under the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen, to avoid having to choose between the U.S. and China. Because this is not in the EU’s interest. Ties, business relations, economic relations with are China important, and that goes both ways, even though the Commission has been mapping out a gradual shift and change in its tone and also on some of the substance, as you just pointed out, where there is competition, Europe has to pull its weight where it can, and von der Leyen did that. But then of course there is the important piece of the member states. And here we’ve seen over the years that as China was gaining strength globally that some countries are more vulnerable to being affected by what happens if China questions. And I think the way that the government of Chancellor Scholz has been looking at this is, yes, there is a gradual change and an acknowledgement that we need to equip ourselves with bite where we can in a fair way. Hence, you know, keep up a multilateral order that will allow us to have a rules-based exchange and also controversy if need be. You’ve seen that particularly with the Green Party’s members, senior members of the German government, Robert Habeck, Annalena Baerbock, they have been driving some of that change more energetically. But the vote on the electric vehicles, of course, was one where the chancellor put his foot down, and that shows the extent to which there is still and perhaps also if you look at the numbers growing into intertwinement of the German economy with the Chinese economy. So from an analytical point of view, I would say if the European Union and Germany as a member state don’t manage to find a common corridor with regard to engaging China in the future, this will be hugely disruptive for the European Union. This is nothing new. We’ve seen that, but it will be more articulated now because the transatlantic tone has gotten so much sharper between the West and China. This is something that you and Peter can talk a lot more about. For the European Union, there is an internal dimension here, but there is also the transatlantic dimension, as Ursula von der Leyen has made clear that she is willing to show the teeth of the European Union also against a key member state, but she also said we need to be able to negotiate, so no one has an interest in an escalation of the conflict.
Jeff Rathke
The vote on the electric vehicle tariffs was interesting in a number of ways. There’s the substance of the issue. There’s also the remarkably high number of abstentions. And then you had Germany voting against the position that wound up carrying the day. All of these are a little unusual, and so when we think about Germany’s European role, let me start with a basic question: Does the current German government, in your view, have any aspirations for the European Union?
Almut Möller
I think this leadership in Berlin takes the European Union as an important muscle of a body that we work with in a way probably more organically than previous German leaderships did. Thinking of Chancellor Kohl who was actually bringing about the reunification, all those fundamental questions of how to build a union, how to develop the institutions, how to put procedures in place that would allow us to take collective decisions and also to welcome all those countries that freed themselves behind the Iron Curtain. So this was the building time of the European Union. And this government, and the previous government of Angela Merkel to some extent, they have to operate in an environment where this Union that was full of aspirations and for all the right reasons is hitting a reality where it has to show that it can work also in bad times. My sense is that the government in Berlin looks at the European Union like a very important muscle, but one where you really have to fight the daily battles to bring member states together. And I would say that by and large in the Union, there is a lot more of a transactional understanding of European collaboration and less values-driven, aspirational. While that is not necessarily such a bad thing because it can advance the Union on policy, and as we saw, Germany was overruled. And the European Commission is going ahead in the area of its competencies and in global trade, and the Union didn’t explode and Germany didn’t leave the Union. You know, these things are happening. So it’s a way of working with the political system that has matured over time.
But then there is a downside to this more transactional approach and that means, from my perspective, that you cannot run the European Union successfully without that additional glue. And this is something that I’m worried about because it’s not only something we see with regard to a coalition government of three parties in Berlin that we’re discussing and looking at and thinking how challenging it is to come to joint positions and to defend them in the Union. That is something we’ve seen across the European Union. We even had a key member state leave not a long time ago. This is a pretty harsh environment nowadays, and this is why, I believe at this point in time, as the U.S. elections are going to unfold, and the world is changing so tremendously, we probably also have to rewire some of the ways in which we have looked at EU policies. Would I call this government in in Berlin right now bad Europeans because they voted against a majority vote. No, this is what European democracy should be about. But do I worry about the future of the European Union’s capacity to act decisively when key member states are struggling in a relationship with one of the most important global players? Yes, I am worried, and so I think what we do need is not only the leadership of Ursula von der Leyen in her new Commission in structuring the team and securing majorities in the European Parliament, but also to significantly beef up engagement with member states. Because the dynamic between the EU level, the Commission, and the member states will be the formative one and the more challenging one in the years to come.
Peter Rashish
Almut, you just mentioned European Commission President von der Leyen, whose second term should be starting by the end of the year, if not shortly after, with an all-new set of Commissioners. And when we look at the constellation of this new Commission, we see that she has appointed someone to be a Trade and Economic Security Commissioner, someone else to be a Commissioner for Defense Procurement and Space. So much more heavy not just on having a geopolitical Commission, which is how she deemed her first Commission, but really one where the idea of security is much more front and center. I wonder how you see these innovations and how you see them lining up or not with German interests in the EU and what those innovations mean for German influence in the EU?
Almut Möller
I think Commission President von der Leyen knows very well that if this Commission is not seriously making an attempt to helping strengthen European security or a European pillar of security in light of the Russian war of aggression, then this is not a credible European Commission. Von der Leyen addressed the two main challenges in Europe right now, one being security—and that is felt for many member states on a daily basis, not only those in geographic proximity but first and foremost—and then secondly, how to stay competitive in a world where we’ve taken for granted that what is in our DNA and that is trading with the outside world, being a significant trading power, this is where we can really pull our weight, relying on an international order where things happen in a way that we can hope for fair treatment. These things are all crumbling and falling apart, and this is somewhat an existential time. And von der Leyen about to enter her second term in office now, I think she understands that fundamentally. And so that is why she put together a team of Commissioners heavyweights such as Kaja Kallas, a former Prime Minister who has been very vocal on strengthening European security on confronting the Russian aggression. But she also nominated a Commissioner for Defense. That is a very important move because she points out that there are a lot of things that the European Union can still do as part of the single market angle to help strengthen European security. I think the challenge for her will be on European defense and security, some angle to make sure that there is a good collaboration in place with the member state level and also with NATO, where I believe that Mark Rutte taking over leadership at NATO is good news for Europe because he knows so very well all the leaders around the European conference tables because he was one of them for so many years. But she has to invest a lot in making that relationship productive, and it won’t be easy. And you pointed that out, Peter, because what we see right now is a fragmented landscape in terms of member states having their own ways of thinking about security. And there is a fragmented market for defense procurement, and this is a very, very big thing to address. And she will have to have the support of member states to be able to make any meaningful moves in that direction. I have a lot of respect for her for doing that because she knows how hard it’s going to be and that she might also fail, but had she not done this, I feel she would have been a lot less credible.
On the competitiveness side, when you’re asking about Germany’s dissent or consent, I think the Draghi report that came out just a few weeks ago and that she also adopted in parts already is one that is important, but I see a lot of potential for controversy with Berlin. Again, something I would have expected. It was the right thing, of course, still, to get such a significant report out, because what Draghi was trying to do was to map the challenges in industrial competitiveness, also speaking a lot about security and defense. And you know, this is not a political document in that sense. It’s getting the numbers and the challenge on the map, and that we have that at this point in time as the Commission starts its journey is important and yes, there will be a lot of a lot of controversial debates between the EU level and member states, and it is good to have an experienced Commission President at this point in time because she knows all of this. She knows what it takes.
Peter Rashish
You have just mentioned competitiveness and the Draghi report. Mario Draghi is also one of those European leaders, from having been President of the European Central Bank and Prime Minister of Italy, who knows the people around the table. And you suggested that there’ll be some, if Ursula von der Leyen as Commission President is inspired by that report in terms of her priorities, there’ll be some push and pull with the member states. If you look at the report, it spans industrial policy, innovation, trade, economic security, technology, and other issues. Where do you think Germany lines up with those priorities and where do you think the tensions could be?
Almut Möller
Well, I think in in some passages one thinks it is a report written addressing some of the malaise of Germany. But this is certainly relevant also for other EU member states. I think where Berlin is very careful is where Draghi talks about going into debt financing and anything that has been branded in the past as euro bonds, that is an absolute red flag for Berlin right now. Not least because parts of the coalition government of course struggle with any such concepts. But, and this I understand, will also be something that the Commission itself will look at not only with openness and other member states either, but the question of how to get investment going there will be the different views at least in this coalition government and also to be expected in any future government with federal elections in Germany next year. Having said that—and there are also a lot of arguments that support Draghi’s reasoning at this stage—the report is not so detailed about this because he knows about the political controversy over this matter—and I feel this is not an apolitical report in that sense, even though it’s more meant to be an economic report in the first place. But this is clearly something that Germany will struggle with. Then everything that is about strengthening the single market moves toward capital market union. It is really a lot in detail, and this is nothing we can expect as going smoothly at all. Most of the suggestions that Draghi makes would require a different Union, and this is what he also articulates. So it’s a very ambitious report. That includes the way the Union has run in terms of more majority votes, which Germany has been standing up for on paper and thus accepting when it happens as we’ve just seen on the EVs. But I expect if there was an implementation of the Draghi report, and we will see what Commission President von der Leyen will adopt then in in her mandate, I expect a whole number of very, very tough negotiations.
And yet, I believe we should also think about Germany as a normal EU country. If you look the domestic constellation in Germany right now and the last European Parliament elections, with the gaining in votes of severely anti-European parties, including the AfD in that, “we want sovereign nations that sit around the table, we don’t want a supernational Union and these kind of things.” They are also influencing what any German government can do in terms of breathing space in the future, so the determining factors of Germany’s EU engagement back at home are narrowing down any room for maneuver in the future, I feel.
Jeff Rathke
If I can jump in here and maybe connect this with the question we opened on, do you think the outcome of the U.S. presidential election, one versus the other, would make the key recommendations of the Draghi report more likely to be adopted? In other words, would, let’s say, an election of Donald Trump galvanized the European leaders behind this kind of an agenda and what effect would that have, do you think on relations with the U.S.?
Almut Möller
I’m an analyst, so there is no space for hope, I assume, but I would hope that the Union, just saying that before I go analytical again–
Jeff Rathke
We all have multiple identities within ourselves.
Almut Möller
Yes, and we need to be human beings after all. But I would hope that regardless of who’s making the race in the United States, Europe pulls itself together because I look at this in a very sort of broad lens. This Union is a product of the post-World War developments and a lot of the things that we count among its features go back to those times. And yet now we have such fundamental changes in the world order as we’ve known it, so this cannot leave the Union unaffected, regardless of who is making the race in Washington. I wish that regardless, political capital would be mobilized. The impact of a presidency of Donald Trump, I think, will be that almost like in a caricature, some of the things that Europe needs doing are looked at in a in a much more urgent way. That is particularly true when it comes to European security, where Europeans have felt vulnerabilities so much. With the Russian war of aggression and the dependency on the United States and other Western allies is still so strong that anything that would even sort of create a dynamic—not even dismantling NATO, I’m not speaking about these things I’m speaking of those atmospheric changes that also make Germany’s and Europe’s big neighbors and aggressive Russia kind of looking at this relationship in a different way. All those doubts that could be sold into this relationship that would be very, very damaging. Any action that would undermine NATO’s role, any interaction that would undermine the credibility of the transatlantic relationship in trying to project power at this critical moment for Europe would be very, very damaging.
But having said that, my sense is that the orientation of the United States, looking at a changing world, is also a factor we need to take into account with Kamala Harris in the White House. Atmospherically, things will be easier and probably not as intense in terms of policy and not erratic. But still, Europeans will have to understand that the United States is also trying to make its own sense of change in the world, and Europe needs to find a way to navigate that. But it would be a lot easier with a President Harris in in the White House, because I feel that what we thought in the past and that was Donald Trump talking and then not doing what he said. We’ve seen that he does many of the things he says, and this would be a dangerous situation for Europe.
Jeff Rathke
Well, I think that gives us plenty to reflect on, not only before the election, but also in the immediate aftermath as the victor emerges perhaps on Election Day or perhaps shortly thereafter and as the next U.S. administration puts together its team and sets its priorities. So Almut, I want to thank you for spending this time with me and Peter and for sharing your insights with our listeners. It’s been great talking with you.
Almut Möller
Many thanks, Jeff, and great to be on the Zeitgeist. Thanks, Jeff and Peter.
Jeff Rathke
We will look forward to having all of our listeners back with us again on the next episode. Thanks so much.
