The Brussels Hub

MODERATOR:  All right.  Good after – or good morning, rather, from the State Department’s European Regional Media Center, or the Brussels Hub.  I’d like to welcome everyone joining us for today’s virtual press briefing.  Today we are very happy to welcome Samuel Samson, senior advisor for the Bureau for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor.

We – so we’ll begin with that, but first I’m going to pass it over to Samuel Samson to tell us a little bit about the trip and how things have been going.  Thank you so much.

MR SAMSON:  Thank you.  It’s – can everyone hear me?  I just wanted to check with State colleagues.  I know I’m calling in from my phone, so —

MODERATOR:  Sounds good.

MR SAMSON:  Perfect.  Well, thank you for being here, everyone.  I’m calling from Budapest right before I fly out.  So it’s been a very busy, very productive extended trip here through Central Europe.  So I’ll just give – I’ll be brief because I know we want to get to questions, but I’m just wrapping up a trip through a bunch of key Central European countries that we view as very key partners of the United States and the administration, namely the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, and then here in Hungary.

The purpose of this trip is multifaceted.  The preliminary objective is to work with countries that we know are very close partners of the United States and deeply committed to our shared values of democracy, self-government, free speech, national sovereignty, and more on key issues that we see – building on the National Security Strategy, building on the Vice President’s speech from February at the Munich Security Conference – regarding concerns that we see in Europe and across the West more broadly regarding these key fundamental Western virtues and values.  And we are hoping to kind of work with key partners on ensuring that those values are shored up and supported against what we are seeing as the democratic backsliding of many governments in Europe, including the European Union, when it comes to key issues like free speech and national sovereignty.

So we’ve been working with our like-minded allies on those issues with different governments, political parties, civil society groups, as is in the custom of DRL to do.  The countries of Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Hungary are key players as part of our broader engagement to build a strong and sovereign and democratic Europe.  We see them as key players economically that we want to build out our partnerships with geopolitically as well and, of course, when it comes to preserving our common Western heritage.

I also met extensively with civil society partners, particularly civil society partners that have historically been ignored by the international human rights establishment largely because they present what I see to be very common-sense views on the family and supporting the family, defending national sovereignty and borders, promoting human rights and the sanctity of life.  So we wanted to make sure that we are being more uniform and objective about the civil society groups that we meet with for reporting purposes and also for collaboration purposes, when getting – becoming aware of the different human rights abuses around the world, wanting to make sure that we move away from the partisan and ideological NGOs that have historically been unilaterally engaged with.

And then lastly, I’ll just make one small note.  I also had a public-facing event here in Budapest sponsored by the Hungarian Institute for International Affairs on – and it was a keynote and panel discussion – on the importance of natural rights and the shift to natural rights and away from kind of an ideologized and selective, partisan conception of human rights that attempts to engage in progressive social engineering to impose a kind of top-down government ideological view of human rights onto the rest of the world, and why it’s important – especially if we’re going to be self-governing Western democracies – to ground our human rights work in objective concepts of human dignity, of national sovereignty, of human nature, of virtue and goodness.

And so we had an incredible panel discussion with interlocutors here in Hungary, and we hope that it’s the beginning of a much more fruitful partnership to defend the values without which democracy and self-governance are impossible.  And so happy to talk about that as well, but I’ll leave it there for time’s sake.

MODERATOR:  Okay, thank you very much.  So Senior Advisor, maybe you could just mention the countries you were in on this trip and anything specific you want to say to those visits, and then we’ll take our first question.

MR SAMSON:  Yeah, great.  Maybe we can get into it more because I know we’re short on time, but again, I was in the Czech Republic, I was in Slovakia, I was in Austria, and I was in Hungary, and we were in the capitals of all those countries, so Prague, Bratislava, Vienna, and then Budapest.

Obviously, there are specific issues that we’re dealing with in each of those countries.  I was very fortunate to be in Prague when the new government kind of came into power with Andrej Babiš.  We’re very excited to work with the Babiš government.  We’re very optimistic about their work on key issues of sovereignty and human rights and preserving democracy against kind of existential threats in Europe that are seeking to undermine those values.  So we’re very excited to work with them.  We had very positive, constructive meetings with the Czech Government.

Likewise with the Slovakians and Prime Minister Fico – met with that government and other civil society groups as well in Bratislava.  We’re very encouraged and look forward to collaborating with them.

Same with Vienna, and we met with various interlocutors, parties there who are also standing for those values.  And then obviously in Budapest, too, with the Hungarian Government, which especially after Prime Minister Orban’s visit to the White House in November, kind of building out more and substantiating more of the due-outs from that excellent meeting, and reaffirming the excellent kind of golden age of U.S.-Hungary relations that we see moving forward with our partners, particularly on these core civilizational issues.

I will say there was a lot of agreement, obviously.  We – all of these countries kind of understand the grounding first principles of freedom and democracy that – and the fact that these are under attack throughout the West, whether that be through mass migration, censorship, kind of pernicious, overburdening, and extraterritorial regulations like the Digital Services Act.  Everyone very much was on the same page, which was very refreshing, that it’s one thing to identify the problem – it’s another thing to find constructive solutions and work together as partners.  And we made a lot of progress towards that on this trip.

MODERATOR:  So talking about solutions and what’s seen as successful or not, we do – we have a question from the chat which is asking whether or not the Trump Administration or the way you’ve been looking at things sees the Hungarian Government as a role model in terms of how they’re approaching things.

MR SAMSON:  In a sense.  We – what we’re very grateful for about the Hungarian Government – and this leads to easy collaboration as well as very good and constructive, frank conversations where we disagree – is that they understand that the primary role of a government is to defend the interests of that nation and of its people.  That’s kind of a foundational premise of democratic self-governance.  And so when we look at the Hungarians, we see that they’re acting in the interests of the Hungarian people.  We see that – we hope that they see – and I think they do understand based on my very constructive meetings with them over the past few days – that we are doing the same under President Trump and that we’re going to pursue a foreign policy that pursues the interests of the American people and American safety and security.  And so that’s very easy to lay as a foundation for a strong bilateral relationship.

And so in a way, the conversations with the Hungarians were much easier, and I say that in a positive sense because kind of the foundational first principles were understood.  And we hope that would be the case with any democratic country in Europe.  But so we’re definitely grateful for a lot of the positive work that the Hungarian Government has done on things like family policy and supporting the importance of the family to civil life.  We’re supportive of their efforts to support President Trump in our peace with – in peace with Ukraine.  European leaders have been hesitant to get on board with that, but we see the Hungarians as a key partner in pursuing peace, as President Trump has said time and time again, and we’re very optimistic about that work going forward, as well as their work to combat things like censorship, interference with the fair electoral process, and also mass migration that we’re seeing throughout Europe.  And so definitely very positive meetings with the Hungarian Government.

MODERATOR:  And we have another question.  So I believe you had mentioned earlier talking about ideology and different ideological approaches, and so we have a question just asking about where Christianity fits into that and if that’s perceived as an ideology in that sense.

MR SAMSON:  No, I think one of the objectives – and I said this during the event at the Hungarian Institute – is that what we’re trying to do is kind of get back to basic common-sense principles that are necessary for democratic self-governance.  There’s a lot of questions about, oh, are natural rights a theologically loaded term, does it presuppose a Christian worldview, are you talking about human rights, how do they relate to human rights, are they the same thing, are they different.  We chose the term “natural rights” to emphasize that rights need to be grounded not in the shifting will of the state, not in the dictates of government, but in human nature that is objective.

And so if you don’t ground rights, if you don’t ground virtue in some sort of objective meaning, if there isn’t an objective good, then what inevitably happens is it becomes kind of a will-to-power reduction where, well, the Trump Administration says that human rights are A, B, and C, but maybe a left-wing government says that human rights are X, Y, and Z.  And inevitably, you just get into this ping-pong back and forth about whose definition of rights is correct, and inevitably, that just leads to kind of a tyrannical imposition from the top down, which we’re seeing in the case of Europe and some of these international institutions that are trying to impose a very ideological view of rights that kind of threatens things like religious liberty for Christians and other people of faith, that threatens elections and democratic self-governance.  They try to impose this worldview on top of the sovereign will of the people.

And so that, we think, in part comes from this lack of grounding in sort of fundamental first principles.  And so the purpose of kind of a natural rights framework is to remind us that our rights are grounded in nature, in our inherent dignity as human beings made in the image of God.  Obviously, those principles are taught in Christianity, they’re also taught in Judaism, but we think that they’re apparent by reason.  America’s founding documents say that these truths are self-evident, and we want to reaffirm that truth that our founders recognized.

MODERATOR:  All right.  And related to that, there’s a question concerning what came up in discussions – if you’re able to talk about – regarding the European Union and its policies and how, specifically, the United States plans to respond to what you and others have brought up in the administration concerning censorship and free speech issues.

MR SAMSON:  Right.  I think there’s a growing consensus – and certainly in the countries that I visited – about the encroachments of bureaucrats in Brussels.  And I do want to make a distinction between citizens of European Union member-states, even perhaps governments of those member-states, and even the founding premises of the European Union that were good and noble and are attempting to pursue some real good, and kind of this unelected, unaccountable bureaucratic class that is ideological in nature – namely of a very progressive, radical progressive ideology – that are attempting to impose that ideology over and on top of well-meaning democratic institutions.  So that understanding was very much understood throughout our meetings.

And so our hope is that we can get back to the foundational principles of the European Union, of European member-states, that we hope are just as keen on defending democratic choice as we are.  The National Security Strategy, which I’m sure many of you have read, came up quite a bit, as you can – as you can imagine.  There’s a lot of narratives going on throughout Europe, particularly from these kind of ideological partisan sources that say that this is an attempt to distance from the European Union.

This could be nothing further from the truth.  If anything, I would say that the National Security Strategy and our approach to Europe is extremely pro-Europe.  It might be the most pro-Europe strategy that’s come out of any U.S. administration.  And that’s because we really do believe in pursuing a strong Europe, a sovereign Europe, a prosperous Europe, a Europe that’s at peace, which is first and foremost given the current situation.  And so I want to impress that on our European friends that the Trump Administration loves Europe, we care about Europe, we care about Europe’s leaders, and we want to be helpful to them as our civilizational allies.  And so that’s the intention there.

MODERATOR:  So turning to the National Security Strategy, we’ve had a couple of questions on that.  One of them is asking how the U.S. will work actively with opposition parties in Europe, as I guess that is provided for in the National Security Strategy.

MR SAMSON:  Right, yeah.  And on that point, it’s very interesting.  I want to get away from this narrative that is completely false that we are only working with certain parties or ignoring other parties.  That couldn’t be further from the truth.  We are noticing – and we note in the National Security Strategy – a very positive trend in political parties that are beginning to recognize the existential threats to the West that have grown in Europe, whether that be a rising regulatory apparatus that stifles economic growth, whether that’s the rise of censorship tactics to obstruct the democratic process, whether that’s the opening of borders without regard to the basic human rights of people in – local citizens in their member-state countries, whether it’s the lack of regard for a peace process in Ukraine and the furtherance of a war that would be unproductive and lead to further strife on the European continent.

We’re grateful to see that there are parties that are beginning to recognize these major problems and are willing to work on those issues.  We’re not here to impose or to play favorites, as some people have characterized us doing.  We want to work with anybody who is willing to stand for a sovereign Europe and a strong Europe, and we find the movement of parties across the political spectrum towards those common-sense solutions to be a constructive thing.  And so we’re going to continue working with everyone, whether it’s governments in power, parties out of power, and everyone in between, to pursue our common interests.

MODERATOR:  So we’ve had some particular interest in Austria and I guess questions about any main concerns or specific issues to Austria that were brought up, or if you’re able to talk about any of the people you met with.

MR SAMSON:  Right, I’ll keep the contents of the meetings to ourselves just out of respect for our interlocutors.  But we see Austria as a major partner.  We met with all kinds of different representatives of the current government, members of multiple different political parties.  And the first order of business was both to kind of – was first to reaffirm our commitment to Austria and our strong partnership with Austria economically, geopolitically, and also from a values perspective; but also to begin collaborating with likeminded individuals on these key issues of censorship and civilizational decline.  And we found there to be a lot of great partners in Austria, people who definitely see similar concerns to us, and it was very productive.

As far as particular issues, obviously migration is a point of big concern for us, particularly the human rights implications of mass migration, the rise of sexual assaults on women and girls in migrant-affected countries, human trafficking of migrants themselves, the displacement of local populations and economic impacts of mass migration, just to name a few.

But let me be very clear, these are human rights issues, these are human rights concerns, and that’s something that our State Department under Secretary Rubio is definitely trying to emphasize to our European partners.

Austria, that’s definitely a point of concern; also broader concerns with things like censorship in the DSA, including the ability of partisan trusted flaggers from other countries to come in and impose censorship or attempt to censor speech in Austria and that extraterritorial concept.  So all of those things came up in conversations and we think we had some very constructive movements.

MODERATOR:  Okay.  So we also have a lot of interest in Hungary.  Is there anything you’d be able to say similarly about Hungary for the Hungarian journalists and others on the line?

MR SAMSON:  Sure.  Obviously, there’s a lot going on in Hungary.  We definitely see Hungary as a leader in the European space, particularly in defending our core civilizational values.  We were very pleased with the meeting between Prime Minister Orban and President Trump last month, and there is a lot to do coming out of it.  I actually – if only I had more time in Budapest, because it became very clear that there was just so much work to do.  We were very happy about the LNG deal that was signed with Hungary yesterday.

The idea of energy diversification, a kind of building out, less dependence on Russian energy and things like that was welcome, and we’re really excited that the Hungarians are working hand-in-hand with us on that; also as key partners on civilizational questions and things like, how can we mitigate the rise of mass migration and stop the egregious actions to impose those types of human rights abuses on the European continent?  How can we work on that together?  How can we work on ending the censorship apparatus?

And then, obviously, Hungary has an election coming up, and so we’re watching it very closely.  We want to see a free and fair election.  We want to make sure that any candidates and voices are heard, that news is conveyed objectively.  We do have very particular concerns about the ways that certain partisan activists – NGOs – are going to attempt to undermine the very constructive progress that has been made with the Hungarians on core issues of family and protecting Western civilization.  So we just wanted to work together to make sure that the integrity of the democratic process was preserved, and we’re very excited to continue our collaboration as we go into a very important year for the Hungarians.

MODERATOR:  Okay.  And we also had a question about civil society.  So both how civil society might fit into all of these goals, but also specifically if you were connected with any civil society representatives in Austria.

MR SAMSON:  Yeah, so I won’t go to the particular countries just because it’s part of a broader thesis.  We did meet with many, many different civil society groups.  It’s nothing new that the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor and the State Department meet with civil society.  Civil society is a core part of a functioning and flourishing democracy.  Often civil society, who are doing kind of the groundwork on core human rights issues, are who we depend on for data and stories and cases that we can raise and elevate.  So having a strong connection between the U.S. Government and civil society on the ground is very important.  And so we’re – in that spirit, we’re continuing to do that work in central Europe.

I think what’s a little bit different this time is that, historically, I think – and I think our administration’s been very clear about this – it’s kind of been ideologically monolithic the way that civil society has been engaged with.  There are many civil society groups in Europe and throughout the West particularly that masquerade as pro-democracy groups or pro-freedom groups when actually they’re engaging in what I call progressive social engineering, or kind of partisan activism, trying to promote different progressive – radical progressive concepts like open borders, gender theory, DEI, et cetera.  And so we definitely wanted to broaden the aperture, or open the aperture, of different groups that we meet with who are doing very good, important work on defending fundamental values, defending family values, defending religious liberty, combating antisemitism, defending free speech and other core, foundational values that make our civilization great.

And so we had many of those different meetings.  We learned a lot from these different groups that had, frankly, been previously ignored.  They brought up a lot of different concerns with religious liberty, with mass migration, with other human rights issues that will be very helpful for us in our continued work.  We hope to build those partnerships in the future and build a kind of very strong line of communication between us and these civil society groups.  And we’re very excited to have these new and exciting partners.

MODERATOR:  All right, thank you very much for that.  So we’re coming to the end of our time today.  So first, thank you, everyone, for your questions.  I know we didn’t get to all of them.  And thank you to Senior Advisor Samson for joining us.  Before we close the call, I just – I’m going to give Senior Advisor Samson an opportunity for any final remarks looking at all of it together, and after that I’ll just give a little bit of information about what – how things proceed after the call.

MR SAMSON:  Yeah, great.  And I’ll – maybe I can kind of emphasize some of the points that I made during the remarks at the Hungarian Institute, because I think they kind of represent or summarize the broader thesis of the trip and then kind of what we’re hoping to do.

To repeat – and I think the National Security Strategy emphasizes this very eloquently – the United States cares about a strong Europe, a prosperous Europe, a sovereign Europe.  And we have shared a long and storied history with European states, and even the European Union, working together to advance shared goals of democracy, self-government, freedom, and even virtue.

And so when we see those foundational values that are necessary, those first principles that I was talking about before, under attack by people who want to dismiss ideas of free electoral choice who are engaging in censorship; when we see people who are rejecting the concept of national sovereignty, advocating for open borders; when we see people telling us that faith is foolish or that patriotism is extremist or dangerous – that’s a real concern to us because what that means is that the very foundations of our transatlantic alliance are attempting to be undermined by partisan ideologues.

And so we’re not here to say this party or this ideology.  I think it’s a very apolitical attempt to help our European friends and work collaboratively to ensure that democratic self-governance remains a priority of the transatlantic relationship, and from that, from a strong Europe, a sovereign Europe, a prosperous Europe, our relationship can be strengthened and we can have a firm foundation built that allows us to combat the greatest challenges that the world is seeing today, whether that be a rising threat from China, whether that’s economic stagnation, whether that’s mass migration.

We think that a strong Europe equals a strong partnership with the United States.  We want to help with that.  We want to support efforts by governments across Europe to achieve those goals and work collaboratively on those and other policy issues.  But we definitely see this as a foundation of what we’re trying to do in Europe.  And so as much as possible, we want – we’re here and ready to engage with our European partners to shore up these foundational values, and because without them the transatlantic relationship becomes a lot more fraught.  We’re very grateful, again, to our interlocutors, the governments specifically in the countries that I visited – the Czech Government, the Slovak Government, the Austrian Government, and of course the Hungarian Government – who very much understand the existential crisis that is facing the West.

Increasingly we see more and more people in Europe – I’m coming to see this as well, and my message to them is that the Trump Administration is very, very grateful.  We’re grateful for our long and historic partnership, and we hope that that continues.  We want it to grow and prosper.  And so this is just the – still very much the beginning of what we hope is a very constructive and positive friendship that has both economic benefits, also geopolitical benefits, but especially kind of civilizational benefits and Western civilization can continue to be this incredible manifestation of freedom and virtue and wellbeing for everybody for a long time to come.

So I think that’s where I’ll leave it, but this is just the beginning of the conversation, I hope.

MODERATOR:  All right.  Thank you very much for those remarks.  So the way it proceeds from here is shortly we’ll send out the audio recordings of the briefing to all the participating journalists and provide a transcript as soon as it’s available.  We’re also always happy to hear feedback from the people who participated.  That can be sent to TheBrusselsHub@state.gov.  Again, TheBrusselsHub@state.gov.  So thank you again for your participation.  Thank you for the journalists for joining.  And for those who are interested, please follow us for more of these briefings soon at the Brussels Hub.  That ends the briefing for today.  All right, have a good trip.  Bye-bye.