BRUSSELS _ European governments, stunned by President-elect Donald Trump's remarks slamming NATO and saying other European Union nations would follow the U.K. out of the bloc, called for cool heads and closer unity.
"I don't share his prediction that there are other Brexit-type departures from the EU on the horizon," Sandro Gozi, Italy's junior minister for European Affairs, said in an interview. "The uncertainty the U.K. is in, and the difficulties which it will face during the negotiations, will make everyone understand that it's much better to stay in the EU and work to improve policies, especially economic ones."
In interviews with the Times of London and Germany's Bild published Sunday, Trump said leaving the 28-nation EU would be good for Britain, said he would consider lifting U.S. sanctions on Russia and described the 67 year-old North Atlantic Treaty Organization as obsolete. Trump's remarks call into question the depth of U.S. support for European defense and trade, which has helped cement the region's post-World War II order and brought former Soviet-bloc countries into the EU and NATO.
"If the Europeans want to be protagonists, and not just spectators, they have to work closer together and accelerate on a common security and defense policy," Gozi said.
Trump also promised the U.K. a quick trade agreement and portrayed the EU as an instrument of German domination designed with the purpose of beating the U.S. in international trade. For that reason, Trump said, he's fairly indifferent to whether the EU stays together, according to Bild.
The remarks are causing "astonishment" and "agitation" across the EU and concern at NATO headquarters, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told reporters Monday in Brussels as he entered a meeting with his EU counterparts. "We do expect our American partner to stick to commitments under international law and to WTO rules."
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg is looking forward to working with Trump and his new national security team, NATO Spokeswoman Oana Lungescu, said in an emailed statement. "He is absolutely confident that the incoming U.S. administration will remain committed to NATO," she said.
"The most important thing is that we play it cool at the moment and wait for them to actually start working," Danish Foreign Minister Anders Samuelsen said before the Brussels meeting. "We have to wait and move away from Twitter diplomacy to real politics."
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson welcomed Trump's comments on the prospects of a swift trade agreement with the U.K., without referring to his wider remarks.
"It's very good news that the USA wants to do a good free-trade deal with us and wants to do it very fast, and it's great to hear that from President-elect Donald Trump," Johnson told reporters in Brussels. "Clearly it will have to be a deal that's very much in the interests of both sides but I have no doubt it will be."
