While “unwavering” in its support for Nato, vice-president Mike Pence was silent about the European Union at the Munich Security Conference.

In his address to the European leaders he underlined that US would “stand with Europe today and every day”, but the same time he regretted that the majority of the Euope’s governments were “failing to pay their fair share” for defense, “eroding” the foundation of the alliance. Apparently, enjoying the US security umbrella, only four Nato countries had met a 2014 commitment to spend 2% of GDP on defence. Nato estimates for 2016 among allies the UK, Greece, Poland and Estonia met the obligations, while the other were US security ‘consumers’.

However the concerns about the ‘moderation’ of US support to NATO in case the situation will not improve, is secondary to the notion of the disbelief of the new US administration of the survival of the EU beyond 2017.

The US vice-president’s silence does not send an encouragement sign to Brussels, already concerned by the personality of the new US ‘ambassador to be’ to the EU, who compared the current situation in the block with the crumbling USSR. Ted Malloch, belonging to the president’s inner circle, has raised a wave of protests from Brussels politicians by comparing the EU to the Soviet Union, profiling himself as an active contributor to its collapse.