“Super-Election Year: Redefining the Global Landscape” was the next topic within the Kosovo Peace and Democracy Summit, which highlighted the possible impacts of the presidential elections in the United States on global politics and transatlantic relations.

The Head of Sofia office at the European Council on Foreign Relations, Maria Simeonova while providing an analysis of the profile of the candidates for the presidential elections Donald Trump and Kamala Harris said that the latter is the candidate that from a financial point of view will be better news for Europe.

“When I concentrate on the profiles of the two candidates Trump and Harris, and I will start with just the assumptions I made just now and I will try to give a different angle than what Marco said. So we have Trump whom we know, and we’ve lived through it and somehow,… What I’m trying to say, is that based on the on his first mandate, we can draw some conclusions on his kind of reflexes, and this will be very important, and this is why I say that when I hear Trump, and I think of foreign policy and transatlantic relations, I think of short term policies, short-term decisions, and I think of business deals, so this is what we can tell based on his first mandate, that he’s going to chase some quick decisions and will neglect maybe deeper problems, especially this is valid for our region, and this is not good news for our region, especially the times we’re living in. Where is Harris, we don’t have a very clear picture yet. I mean, even in the debate and anything we know for now is quite vague to an extent. But what we can expect is continuity, and at least we can hold on the transatlantic relationship, and for Europe, it will be very important to have someone in the White House who will be engaged with the European security, with continuing engagement of the US on the continent and especially on Ukraine, and this will be important given coming tough negotiations within the EU on the next multiannual financial framework. So Harris is the candidate that from the financial point of view including will be better news for Europe”, she said.

The Senior Advisor at ISAC Fund, Marko Savkovic has shared an analysis on the differences between the candidates in the upcoming US elections, underlining that the main priorities for citizens are the economy and health.

“I was looking this morning at this big compilation of data from… research center on how the two candidates are fearing so far and where the differences are. And also what the priorities are for citizens, and economy and health care of course lead the way not only then foreign policy. Where differences are great as they’re on violent crime, immigration, gun policy, abortion. So on all this, highly contentious issues, and the two policies have only drifted apart even more. When you look at data for the past three or four years of course, since the last presidential elections. I mean in particular over past three years, immigration for Trump supporters has doubled almost as a priority, and same has happened with abortion for Harris supporters, which is perfectly understandable, of course, for anyone who’s been following developments in the US recently… What when asked who can bring the country closer citizens in a five to seven percent, majority answer Harris, but when asked who would manage the economy better citizens also respond in a five to seven percent majority Trump, which is also very interesting. What this mean, I think and someone said I think it was Milica on the issue of trade and tariffs it’s only with China; there are concerns on the issue of trading tariffs with the EU as well not to go into great details which would really jeopardize the global economy as we know it today. But this is coming from growing demand of citizens concerned with losing phase and seeing quality of life going down”, he said.

The Senior Policy Officer at EPLO, Lorenzo Conti, stated that the European Union has developed a number of instruments to be more active in the military aspect. He hopes that after discussions on the defense industry, the EU will once again focus on peace building.