Incumbent American president Trump tweeted this morning that he already had won the elections although the votes in all states have not been counted yet.
The only way to decide who won the elections is to continue to count all the votes but Trump announced that he wants the counting of the votes to be stopped. He might turn to the supreme court – which he just filled with a conservative judge – to rule in this favour.
Asked by The Brussels Times at today's press conference if the EU will recognize election results if this would happen, the chief spokesperson of the Commission declined to address the hypothetical question and replied that the EU is waiting for the final election results and have confidence in the “strong democratic tradition” in the US.
In fact, that tradition differs from most other democratic countries where it normally takes time to count all votes and any issues are examined by a central election committee or authority and not by a politicized supreme court.
Furthermore, no other democracy has the equivalent of the American Electoral College – a relic from the US past - which means that a president can be elected without a popular majority as happened last time.
One EU Member State has already congratulated Trump to his “victory”. Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa tweeted this morning that, "It's pretty clear that American people have elected @realDonaldTrump @Mike_Pence for #4moreyears.” The Commission declined to comment on this tweet which could be considered as breaching EU rules against disinformation.
M.Apelblat
The Brussels Time
