Between the war in Ukraine, the sudden fall of the Assad regime in Syria and Donald Trump's return to the White House, Kaja Kallas, the European Union's new High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and also Vice-President of the Commission, knew that there would be a lot of challenges. Six weeks after taking up her quarters on the 12th floor of the Berlaymont, the Commission headquarters in Brussels, the Atlanticist foreign minister is confronted with sweeping statements from the US's new strongmen. On Tuesday, January 7, Donald Trump said he wanted to get his hands on Greenland, a territory that is part of EU member state Denmark, and he didn't rule out the use of force to get it. Meanwhile, the billionaire Elon Musk, the president-elect's financial backer, is stepping up his political interference in Europe.
Despite this, the former prime minister of Estonia (2021-2024) intends to keep a cool head and, as she explained in an exclusive interview with Le Monde, refuses to get involved in the controversy in order to spare her American ally. As for Musk, who on Thursday organized a discussion on his social media network X with Germany's far-right leader Alice Weidel, she reminded us that we need to distinguish between the man and his social media network: "Even very powerful people have the right to have their own opinions on governments. We have freedom of speech so that people can say what's on their mind." But when it comes to X, "the EU has very clear rules in place, like the Digital Services Act, and if the big platforms don't follow them, they will suffer the consequences of that," she warned.
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