The European Union's Lisbon Treaty was supposed to streamline the EU bureaucracy and improve communication between the two sides of the Atlantic. Instead, it essentially allows the EU a foreign policy power-grab, the driving force of which is the notion that the countries of Europe will be stronger collectively than they are separately. Sovereignty cannot be traded for influence, and the EU's attempts to do so could threaten the security of Europe and of the United States.
Stéphane Séjourné will helm the European Parliament’s third-largest group, leaving MEPs wondering if he will be able to distance himself from the powerful French leader.