US-EUROPE: An Ocean Apart in More Ways Than One

By Matthew O. Berger Reprint | | Print |

Matthew Berger

WASHINGTON, Nov 2 2009 (IPS) - As a delegation of European Union leaders descends on Washington Tuesday, a new report argues that "European governments prefer to fetishise transatlantic relations, valuing closeness and harmony as ends in themselves, and seeking influence with Washington through various strategies of seduction or ingratiation".

The report from the European Council on Foreign Relations' Jeremy Shapiro and Nick Witney comes the day before a U.S.-EU summit that will focus on climate change, economic recovery, development and foreign policy.

The report also provides some answers for the growing European concern that the United States, and the Barack Obama administration in particular, is largely indifferent to its European allies' concerns.

Its authors see the U.S. as recognising a shift toward a "post-American world" in which global power is distributed to new regions like China. In response to this shift, they say, the U.S. has sought to shore up the relationships that will be crucial to maintaining its central role in 21st century global affairs. Its relationship with the EU is not one of those.

This may be in evidence Tuesday as the gravity with which the EU approaches the two-day summit, in sending all its top leaders and many others besides, is expected to be indicative of the sort of European "illusions" about the state of transatlantic relations pointed out in the report.

"The continuing inadequacy of formal EU-U.S. dialogue is particularly exposed by the annual EU-U.S. summits," says the report. "To Americans, these summits are all too typical of the European love of process over substance, and a European compulsion for everyone to crowd into the room regardless of efficiency."

The authors say Pres. Obama has made it clear he intends to work more closely with China than with the EU, despite the European nations' outdated belief "that Europe remains the U.S.'s natural partner in looking out to a wider world."

Based on interviews and input from the EU's 27 member states, the report concludes that the EU's best move is to have a stronger, more united front and to not "shy away from questions about what they actually want from transatlantic relations".

It finds that, given the "special relationship" much of Europe envisions they have with the U.S. – especially under Obama, who is much admired in Europe – they feel it would be "improper" to "replace their habits of deference with a tougher but ultimately more productive approach."

The report's critiques are largely related to transatlantic discussions of foreign policy and security, rather than those on economic issues, where it says the EU has had "no difficulty" negotiating effectively with the U.S.

Climate change discussions

However, one economic-related area – climate change – does stand out as a point of contention. Climate change is expected to be one of the main topics discussed at the summit, and Wednesday a new joint energy council between the U.S. and the EU will be set up as EU leaders visit the State Department.

The council will focus on issues such as global energy security and the research and development of new technologies and follows a proposal by the Obama administration in June meant to deepen the transatlantic dialogue on the issue.

Aside from the cooperation represented by this council, however, the U.S. and EU have hardly seen eye to eye on climate change.

The EU concluded at a summit last week that rich countries should give up to 50 billion euros to developing countries to help them cope with and mitigate climate change. It did not, however, say how much of this amount the EU itself should contribute.

This and other issues are likely to be on the table Tuesday.

By not committing to a firm amount of aid last week, the European Commission and several member states feared the EU was risking its reputation as a leader in climate change policy.

The ECFR report, however, calls this concern with "setting a good example" outdated and irrelevant to influencing policy elsewhere. The U.S., it says, "will determine such matters [as climate change] on the basis of what they think is in the American interest, with scant reference to any self-proclaimed European 'lead'."

Europe, meanwhile, needs to see that "climate change is Obama's next priority after health care", according to Nick Mabey of the European sustainable development nonprofit E3G, speaking to reporters by phone Tuesday.

Even with the climate bill slowly making its way through the U.S. Senate, frustration is mounting in some European capitols over a perceived lack of U.S. commitment to the climate talks set for Dec. 7 in Copenhagen.

Speaking in Barcelona at the last round of pre-Copenhagen talks, Danish climate and energy minister Connie Hedegaard said, "It's very hard to imagine how the American president can receive the Nobel Prize… and at the same time [send] an empty-handed delegation to Copenhagen."

In a visit unrelated to the EU-U.S. summit, recently reelected German Chancellor Angela Merkel will speak before a joint session of the U.S. Congress Tuesday ahead of the twentieth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Mabey feels Merkel was reelected with a strong mandate to ensure Germany takes a lead in climate change issues. "Now that [the German elections have ended], Europe is back in the game," he added. "The internal games that have distracted Europe the past couple months are over."

Those ongoing internal games, however, are what make Europe less critical of an ally in the U.S.'s view, say Shapiro and Witney. The U.S. has recognised since President George W. Bush's time in office "that a Europe that acted as one would be more useful to America".

In this sense, it is possible the Lisbon Treaty moving through the EU ratification process could once again raise the global importance of Europe in U.S. eyes to the level they were before the wall fell.