Klaus Welle served as the Secretary General of the European Parliament (EP) from 2009-2022. Previously, he was Head of the Cabinet of the President of the EP (2007-2009), Director-General for Internal Policies at the EP (2004-2007), and Secretary-General of the European People’s Party (EPP) (1994-1999). He currently chairs the Academic Council of the Martens Centre, the official think-tank of the EPP. Welle is also a Guest Professor at LSE, a Leader in Residence at the Moynihan Center of the Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership in New York City, and a Visiting Professor at KU Leuven.
Amidst US tariffs on its allies, continued but foreboding Trump-Putin dialogue and an ever-growing wave of right-wing populist party success in the June 2024 European Parliament election, Europe’s economic and political stability is anything but certain. In February, the OPR sat down with the Parliament’s former Secretary General Klaus Welle to discuss how the European Union can weather the storm.
Faced with the Trump administration’s changing policies vis-a-vis Europe, we discussed whether Italy’s Georgia Meloni could facilitate the transatlantic link. Meloni, representing the far-right populist Brothers of Italy party, has long voiced her admiration for Trump. Meloni’s approval is not unrequited; Meloni was the only EU leader at Trump’s inauguration and was seated beside her South American fellow far-right leader Javier Milei, president of Argentina, in the first US Presidential inauguration to be attended by foreign heads of state. Beyond her relationship with Trump, Meloni has cultivated a bond with Elon Musk, Trump’s protegé and leader of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, discussing using the billionaire’s Starlink services for Italian security in the face of domestic Italian uproar.
Though Welle agreed that the Meloni-Trump relationship was positive, he reminded us that ‘at the end, Trump is an interest politician.’ Using tariffs as an example, he stressed his belief in the European Union’s resilience: ‘I think the solidarity among the 27 Member States is decisive. But we already see that when it comes to tariffs. Concerning Canada and Mexico, these threats were relatively short lived. But I think the European Commission is well prepared for everything, and whereas, yes, we have a big surplus on goods, the United States has a huge surplus on services with the European Union. So if [Trump] wants to balance out goods, then it means [the EU] has to balance out on services.’ Welle’s predictions were confirmed in early April, when Ursula von der Leyen announced that the EU planned to retaliate against US tariffs on goods such as automobiles through tariffs worth up to 26€ billion, with a second round on the way.
Staying with the United States, the OPR asked Welle about the implications of the US cutting its foreign aid budget, whether in the form of European intervention, or China and Russia seizing this opportunity to fill the US power vacuum, which is already having devastating humanitarian effects. Welle refuted the idea of the EU stepping in to fill the USAID’s role, not least because of the ‘enormity of the scale that the US used to contribute’, but also because of a changing debate in European development initiatives. Welle drew from his personal experience, remarking that ‘this debate has completely shifted, and we are in a situation where there’s more and more pressure on public funds where debt levels are higher.’
Welle was skeptical of the possibility of China stepping in: ‘The Chinese are doing business, so I don’t expect that they will fill this vacuum.’ As for Russia, Welle saw Moscow as too preoccupied with the war in Ukraine to involve itself in other conflicts. Welle gave the example of Armenia; Russia did not come to its aid in September 2023, ultimately allowing Azerbaijan to establish its own sovereignty over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave. According to Welle, the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh cemented Russia’s abandonment of its role as a security guarantor for the fragile peace in the region, which had already begun to erode when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. He further linked an overstretched Russia with the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, when Russia was too weak to come to the aid of the Syrian dictator despite having been its close ally..Consequently, Welle also predicted that Russian presence in Africa may decrease, especially given the difficult conditions in Sudan and Libya.
Shifting back to Europe, Welle discussed the rise in European far-right populist parties in the context of recent German parliamentary elections in February, which saw the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party’s move from the fringes to become the country’s leading opposition group, winning 20% of the vote. Welle attributed this rise of right-wing populism to the revolt of a disaffected lower middle class, explaining, ‘if you ignore their concerns, you create a growth market for the extreme right.’ Welle also argued for viewing the political party system from a vertical, social status-based approach rather than on a left-right spectrum. ‘You can see that, economically speaking and in terms of education, the Liberals and the Greens are the parties of the upper middle class in Germany. The Social Democrats and the Christian Democrats are the middle class, and the left and the AfD are the party of the lower middle class, he illustrated. Welle drew on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which theorises that individuals prioritise basic survival and security issues before they are able to address issues such as personal growth and fulfillment. Consequently, since the Greens’ policies appeal to higher-level concerns on Maslow’s pyramid, Welle argued that they will not resonate with voters with less education and lower income, who feel that their lower-level needs are not yet met. Welle asserted that this disregard for the more basic needs of voters is ‘a big mistake, and doesn’t make those policies sustainable’, as it creates a large political gap for populist parties such as the AfD to fill. Welle’s comments come as mainstream parties band together to narrowly keep extremists out of power. Germany’s parties partially managed to keep the AfD out of the leadership position through their “firewall” agreement, echoing the French anti-RN “cordon sanitaire” similarly designed to keep Marine Le Pen’s far-right party out of government after the 2024 legislative elections. Whether this way of keeping extremists out of power is sustainable in the long term when these parties continue to enjoy popular support, however, is up for debate.
Welle emphasised that European mainstream parties cannot hope to counter the rising extremist groups if they leave vulnerable groups behind. The former secretary general and architect of Brussels as the “Capital of Europe”” was confident in the EU’s ability to leverage its economic power to maintain Europe’s competition amidst the changing transatlantic relations. Though the EU may face instability with the volatile global context, its ability to band together in times of adversity promises hope for the changing world order.