Clouds loom over EU-US summit talks

Date: 06/06/1996

By Elizabeth Wise

IT will doubtless be a sunny day in Washington when US President Bill Clinton steps out on to the White House lawn with Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi and European Commission President Jacques Santer next week.

But a few shadows will nevertheless hang over the EU-US summit which begins next Tuesday (11 June).

The darkest cloud is in the shape of Cuba, with the Union taking the Clinton administration to task over its policy of punishing businesses that trade with Havana, many of which are European.

Another looming cloud comes in the form of European distaste for American trade philosophy in China and elsewhere, amid mounting EU criticism of the big-stick nature of US sanctions and its refusal to join multilateral efforts in various sectors.

“The Helms-Burton act and certain US trends toward unilateralism will not be absent from discussions,” said an aide to Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan, who will accompany Santer to Washington.

Superficial wounds have also been inflicted on the Union lately regarding its weaknesses in foreign policy, after former US Bosnia negotiator Richard Holbrooke made his feelings very public about the Union's alleged failure to hold up its end of the peace implementation process in Bosnia.

Although Holbrooke is no longer a member of the Clinton administration, his remarks offended EU member states and prompted foreign ministers to attack the Americans not only for an utter lack of solidarity, but also for twisting the facts.

Some EU foreign ministers were also irked that, despite their timely and concentrated efforts, US Secretary of State Warren Christopher got all the credit last month for brokering a truce between Israel and the Hezbollah forces in southern Lebanon.

But, as one Commission official said, “close brothers often squabble”, and there have been plenty of positive developments in transatlantic policy over the last six months.

The Transatlantic Agenda signed in Madrid last December by Clinton, Santer and the then Spanish Prime Minister Felipe Gonzaléz committed the two sides to cooperation in fields ranging from trade and education to crime-fighting.

Next week's meeting, the latest in a series of six-monthly transatlantic summits which began in 1991, will take stock of recent efforts to build closer ties and consider progress on the 120-point action plan agreed in Madrid.

Brittan aides say there has been progress on the trade points, notably in the field of intellectual property. At a recent conference in Rome, the EU and the US agreed to step up their joint work to enforce the 'TRIPS' global intellectual property rights agreement. “It is not concrete

yet, but we are firming up the commitment,” said one.

But he expressed dismay at Washington's “continuing trend” of taking unilateral action against China and Japan, which the EU feels flies in the face of the World Trade Organisation which both the Union and the US helped establish last year.

Meanwhile, businessmen on both sides of the Atlantic have banded together to discuss issues such as certification, mutual recognition, public procurement, accounting, energy, automobiles, information technology, pharmaceuticals, investment and competition.

The Transatlantic Business Dialogue published a report last month listing achievements in many fields and calling on summit participants to pledge “to remove costly, regulatory barriers to economic efficiency and market access”.

However, recently some European businessmen have been chafing against legislation from Washington which aims to bar them from doing business in Cuba.

Member state government ministers including UK Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, who denounced the sanctions during a visit to Washington last week, have told the US it has no right to dictate policy to non-American companies. They also oppose plans to extend similar punishments to businesses dealing with Iran or Libya.

US officials say Clinton is not likely to raise the subject. Instead, they say, he will put Bosnia high on the agenda - an area where he has good news to report.

The Union and the US have cooperated on reconstruction efforts in the war-torn country, and are now co-funding a UN demining centre in Sarajevo. They are working together within the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to support human rights' monitors in the region and are jointly pushing preparations for Bosnian elections.

It is very welcome, say officials, that there are no differences between the Union and the US as far as peace implementation is concerned, denying opposing sides in Bosnia any opportunity to play the two western powers off against one another as happened frequently during the war.

In other foreign policy areas, the two sides are finding more ways to cooperate. The EU has contributed funds to a US project for developing non-nuclear energy in North Korea (KEDO), and officials point to progress in other areas, such as development aid in Africa.

Cooperation with the EU will extend “right down to the lowest level” in all US government agencies, Clinton promised last December. That pledge is being fulfilled, even at the summit - EU officials say lower level meetings will take place in the margins of the summit.