Célia Belin
Visiting Fellow - Foreign Policy, Center on the United States and Europe
Célia Belin is a visiting fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings. Her areas of expertise include trans-Atlantic relations, U.S. foreign policy toward Europe, French politics and foreign policy, domestic determinants of foreign policy, and the politics of travel under COVID. She is the author of “Des Démocrates en Amérique: L’heure des choix face à Trump,” which was published by Fayard-Fondation Jean Jaurès in 2020.
Prior to joining Brookings, she served for over five years as an advisor on U.S. affairs and trans-Atlantic relations in the French foreign ministry’s Centre d’Analyse, de Prévision et de Stratégie (policy planning staff), where she recommended policy options through notes, reports, speech-writing, and transition documents, as well as conducted 1.5 dialogues and led multiple long-term research projects on areas of strategic importance to French foreign policy. Belin was also chief editor of the center’s flagship publication, Les Carnets du CAPS. She taught U.S. foreign policy to master’s students at University Paris 2 and University of Saint-Denis. Previously, Belin was a guest fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and a visiting research scholar in the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.
Belin holds a doctorate in political science (University Paris 2), a master's degree in international relations (University Paris 2), and a bachelor’s degree in Modern Languages/Business (University of Burgundy). Her dissertation on Evangelical pro-Israel lobbying in the U.S. was published by Fayard (Jésus est juif en Amérique, 2011), and the book received a “particular mention” from the Emile Perreau-Saussine prize on political philosophy. Belin writes regularly on U.S. affairs and trans-Atlantic relations, is a frequent commentator on radio and television, and recently co-edited a book on U.S. foreign policy (Les Etats-Unis dans le monde, CNRS editions, 2016).
Affiliations:
Le Rubicon, member, editorial committee
Célia Belin is a visiting fellow in the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings. Her areas of expertise include trans-Atlantic relations, U.S. foreign policy toward Europe, French politics and foreign policy, domestic determinants of foreign policy, and the politics of travel under COVID. She is the author of “Des Démocrates en Amérique: L’heure des choix face à Trump,” which was published by Fayard-Fondation Jean Jaurès in 2020.
Prior to joining Brookings, she served for over five years as an advisor on U.S. affairs and trans-Atlantic relations in the French foreign ministry’s Centre d’Analyse, de Prévision et de Stratégie (policy planning staff), where she recommended policy options through notes, reports, speech-writing, and transition documents, as well as conducted 1.5 dialogues and led multiple long-term research projects on areas of strategic importance to French foreign policy. Belin was also chief editor of the center’s flagship publication, Les Carnets du CAPS. She taught U.S. foreign policy to master’s students at University Paris 2 and University of Saint-Denis. Previously, Belin was a guest fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and a visiting research scholar in the Middle East Institute at Columbia University.
Belin holds a doctorate in political science (University Paris 2), a master’s degree in international relations (University Paris 2), and a bachelor’s degree in Modern Languages/Business (University of Burgundy). Her dissertation on Evangelical pro-Israel lobbying in the U.S. was published by Fayard (Jésus est juif en Amérique, 2011), and the book received a “particular mention” from the Emile Perreau-Saussine prize on political philosophy. Belin writes regularly on U.S. affairs and trans-Atlantic relations, is a frequent commentator on radio and television, and recently co-edited a book on U.S. foreign policy (Les Etats-Unis dans le monde, CNRS editions, 2016).
Affiliations:
Le Rubicon, member, editorial committee
I think [Vice President Kamala Harris has] been really hidden this whole time and out of the sight of most Europeans. I think she’s been quite under the radar.
The vice president is basically a part of this charm operation that the United States implemented towards France in the past month and a half [...] The vice president's visit is sort of the last straw of this procession of high-level American officials who who are coming, passing by Paris or meeting with the French in order to remind everybody that they value the French-American relationship, that they value the bilateral relationship in the context of Europe.
The American travel ban on Europeans felt much more arbitrary and also allowed for much less exceptions... It reinforced the feeling that the American passport is stronger than the European passports. [The announcement of AUKUS] came on the back of a very difficult summer transatlantically for Joe Biden. [Lifting the ban, which only applies to vaccinated travelers, still excludes many countries where the vaccine is not yet easily available or recognized by the U.S. The administration is also working through a backlog of visas, which were halted during the ban.]
Do trans-Atlantic relations need a reset?
You really have a failure of developed countries’ leadership post-Covid [on global vaccine distribution]. This is going to have consequences.
[The October 29 bilateral meeting between Biden and Macron] will be the occasion to make some announcements and to see whether or not [... the AUKUS] crisis was the occasion to define [...] a new common agenda, or if there are sort of long, lingering issues that cannot be addressed. [... The meeting is] highly anticipated on the French side. I wonder if it's highly anticipated on the other side. [... The dynamic is] a reflection of the imbalance in a relationship. [...] One is the superpower. The other one is this strong middle power. But you have an imbalance. And for France, having a good relationship, or having a clear relationship, with the U.S. — it's also a condition, for instance, for influence in Europe.