Kallas calls on the new US Congress to increase pressure on Russia

EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Kaja Kallas is confident that the US Congress emerging from the mid-term elections will “increase further pressure on Russia”. “American voters have made their choice clear,” said this Wednesday the vice president of the European Commission, the first voice of the highest authorities of the EU that has been heard after the disaster suffered by the president of the United States, Donald Trump, at the polls. The members of the European Parliament have been more talkative, but among the first swords of the institutions the silence and caution with which they usually treat the Republican have prevailed.

“I hope that the new House of Representatives and the new Senate will continue to support Ukraine and exert more pressure on Russia,” claimed the Estonian politician, considered a hawk in relations with Moscow and one of the strongest defenders of kyiv in the EU. In Kallas's words there is also an implicit recognition of the role already played by the United States Congress, in which both Republicans and Democrats have been much closer to Ukraine than the Trump White House has been, which has veered a lot towards Moscow.

“Both Europe and the United States are much stronger together and [I hope] we also clearly transmit these messages to Russia so that, with this pressure, it puts an end to this war [in Ukraine],” added Kallas, who stressed: “Elections have their results.”

Contrast with this speech, cautious and vindictive at the same time, is the joy of the socialist Iratxe García Pérez. She, president of the Socialists and Democrats group, has celebrated the resounding victory of the Democrats: “The blue wave has arrived.” The Spanish woman has dared to predict that “the beginning of the end of Trump's wars, illegal tariffs and attacks on democracy” has arrived.

The president of Renew, the liberal group in the European Parliament, has spoken along the same lines as García Pérez: “Hope has triumphed.” “American voters have shown that division, intimidation and attacks on democratic institutions cannot go unanswered,” added Valérie Hayer through a message published on the social network X, in which she supports “solid transatlantic relations” in which Europe is autonomous.

The popular Europeans have shown themselves much more restrained. Its leader, Manfred Weber, has not reacted. Nor have other prominent members of this party who hold high positions in the EU institutions, such as the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, or the president of the European Chamber, Roberta Metsola. German MEP Michael Gahler, spokesperson for his group in Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee, has spoken about this political family: "American voters have cast their votes and have sent a clear message to the White House: this is not the way forward. Trump promised to reduce inflation and end participation in wars abroad. He has achieved just the opposite."

Regarding how the result of this Tuesday's elections in the United States may influence transatlantic relations, Gahler stressed that "there is no direct impact, since the president enjoys broad discretion in this section." “As Europeans, we will have to deal with this Administration for another two years, but as parliamentarians we must actively collaborate with the new majority in both chambers from this very moment,” he noted, hinting that he likes the corrective that the polls have inflicted on Trump.