Trump bigger uncertainty for EU than Brexit: Hammond

Davos: Donald Trump’s presidency is likely to create bigger uncertainty for the European Union (EU) than Britain’s decision to leave the bloc, Britain’s finance minister Philip Hammond said on Friday.

“Brexit has introduced uncertainty. I think the change of administration in the US has introduced an even bigger piece of uncertainty for the European Union,” Mr Hammond said in a panel discussion about the EU in the Swiss resort of Davos.

Mr Hammond, a former foreign minister, said EU countries varied widely in how big a security threat they saw from Russia.

“Anything that changes the settled status quo of a Europe that lives with Russia as a neighbor, but lives under a protective US security umbrella as it does ... will play into the dynamics of the European Union,” Mr Hammond said.

Mr Trump, who is due to be inaugurated as the US President later on Friday, has expressed his admiration of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and raised concern about how countries share the cost of providing security via the NATO alliance.

Meanwhile, Mr Hammond held that former Prime Minister Tony Blair was partly responsible for the country’s vote to leave the bloc for failing to introduce measures to limit the flow of people from countries that joined the bloc in 2004.

He said June’s vote showed there was a “strong strand of feeling” against the uncontrolled movement of people within the EU and he laid the responsibility for that “squarely at the door” of Mr Blair.

Mr Blair, who was Prime Minister from 1997 to 2007 and remains a keen EU advocate, did not impose transitional controls back in 2004.