| With a Trump 2.0 administration considered to be an increasingly realistic scenario in Brussels, Europe has started looking to future-proof its relations with Washington while Eurosceptics are having a field day. As Euractiv has previously reported, over the past weeks, European Commission officials and member states have started discussing how to ‘Trump-proof’ the Brussels-Washington relationship, given the experience with the previous Trump administration. A senior source from the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) also confirmed to Euractiv that more consideration is being given to how to deal with a potential new Trump era and expedite the progress of legislation needed in specific fields, such as trade. “Europe is examining all the key strategic moves that need to be made”, the EPP source said. “We have many unknowns such as the decoupling from China discussion, the Ukraine issue […] We need to be ready.” Traditionally, US Democrats have been aligned with the EU’s liberals and centre-left and US Republicans with the EU centre-right (EPP). However, with Trump at the helm, the US Republicans no longer have their traditional friends from the European People’s Party on board. Under the current EPP leadership, all relations with the Republicans have been frozen. | 