EU Responds to U.S. 'Civilizational Extinction' Warning: "The U.S. Cannot Speak for Our Vision"

U.S. Criticizes Europe’s Immigration Policies in NSS
"Allies Do Not Threaten or Interfere
in the Political Life or Democratic Choices of Other Allies"

Ant?nio Costa, President of the European Union (EU) Summit, attended a press conference during the 47th ASEAN Summit held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, on October 27 (local time). Photo by Reuters Yonhap News

"The United States cannot speak for Europe about what vision we hold or what freedom of expression means."

According to Euronews and other sources, Antonio Costa, President of the European Union (EU) Summit, criticized the United States at the Jacques Delors Conference in Paris, France, on December 8 (local time), stating, "Allies do not threaten to interfere in the political life or democratic choices of other allies." The President of the EU Summit is regarded as an EU leader alongside the President of the European Commission.

On December 5, the U.S. government issued its National Security Strategy (NSS), sharply criticizing Europe for facing a "civilizational extinction" crisis due to its open immigration policies and excessive regulations. At the same time, the U.S. expressed its intention to support European far-right parties that advocate anti-immigration policies.

President Costa also responded to the U.S. government's criticism of big tech regulations, saying, "Without freedom of information, there can be no freedom of expression," and added, "If citizens' freedom of information is sacrificed to defend American tech tycoons, then true freedom of expression cannot exist."

Euronews described this as the EU's most resolute statement since the United States publicly criticized Europe in its new NSS. This contrasts with the more cautious stance taken by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas, who said, "The United States remains our most important ally. While we may not agree on every issue, our core principles remain unchanged." On the same day, the European Commission imposed a 120 million euro fine on social networking service X (formerly Twitter), led by CEO Elon Musk, further escalating tensions between the two sides.

The European right-wing and populist bloc welcomed the formalization of such U.S. political support. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban wrote on X, "When the Brussels power brokers cannot win an argument, they resort to fines," and argued, "What Europe needs is not unelected bureaucrats, but freedom of expression." He also expressed "respect" to Musk, who called for the dissolution of the EU after being fined.

The "Patriots for Europe" (PfE) group in the European Parliament, which includes Orban's Fidesz party and France's National Rally (RN), also declared, "We will fight to dismantle this censorship regime." This is interpreted as an attempt to use the new U.S. criticism of the EU to highlight their political agenda.

Meanwhile, as the U.S. government continues to attack the EU's big tech regulations, Meta has accepted the EU's concerns and revised its policy to allow users to directly choose the scope of social media data collection. According to the European Commission, Facebook and Instagram users will now be able to either consent to all data collection and receive personalized ads or limit data sharing and receive less personalized ads.

The EU imposed a 213 billion euro (approximately 366.2 trillion won) fine on Meta in April this year. Additionally, on December 4, one day before fining X, the EU announced the launch of an antitrust investigation into Meta, alleging that the company blocked competitor AI chatbots on WhatsApp.