With the kind of bombast usually reserved for action movie trailers, the president of the European council, Donald Tusk, announced his plans for the autumn this week, with a Hollywood blockbuster-style trailer posted to social media.
With an urgent soundtrack of crashing drums, Tusk is seen in quick cuts with a variety of world leaders including Emmanuel Macron, Donald Trump and Theresa May, as important forthcoming engagements such as the “informal meeting EU leaders in Salzburg” are trailed.
As well as outlining the dates in Tusk’s diary, the trailer promises that the former Polish prime minister will be focusing on a series of issues including security and trade, as well as “managing Brexit”.
“Bring it on!” he added with enthusiasm to the tweet. The video was also posted to Facebook.
Coming up this autumn: #EUCO, #UNGA, #ASEM12, #G20, internal and external security, migration, rules-based multilateral cooperation, economy, trade, and of course #Brexit.
— Donald Tusk (@eucopresident) September 6, 2018
Bring it on! pic.twitter.com/gBFkfvvo7H
Reaction underneath the video was predictable, with people suggesting it was “over the top”, and various social media users beginning to argue about the merits of Brexit. “Like the intro to the evil empire in a badly made Bond rip-off,” said one account.
Tusk’s social media postings are usually rather more low-key, frequently consisting of still images of him shaking hands. However, the stakes for political trailers were upped earlier this year, when Donald Trump’s team produced a four-minute epic Hollywood-style introduction for the summit meeting between the US president and the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un.
Tusk’s new trailer is at least a little more melodic than his previous attempts to sing Hey Jude.
