The US and us

Date: 15/06/06

Judging by the preparations for the EU-US summit in Vienna on 21 June, the event promises to be one of the most awkward of recent years.

In the run-up to the meeting, officials from the European Commission and the Austrian presidency of the EU have been locked in tough negotiations with their US counterparts from the White House over a summit declaration. The US side is pressing for tough language on a number of countries such as Iran, Lebanon, Cuba and Venezuela, which the EU is resisting, saying it would be counter-productive to its relations with those states. Similarly, a US call for support for 'action plans', where the Union would give its backing to Washington's approach to issues such as promoting democracy and fighting terrorism, is proving hard for the EU to swallow.

Negotiations have been referred to senior officials in a bid to produce a workable compromise for the 21 June summit at which US President George W. Bush will meet Council President Wolfgang Sch�ssel, Commissioner President Jos�anuel Barroso and Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief.

The row over the summit declaration in some ways reflects the improvement in transatlantic relations since the low point of the disagreement over the Iraq war. Both sides have been co-operating more successfully in a wide number of foreign policy areas and some officials believe that the tough US position in the summit preparations stems from a desire to accentuate the positive side of relations.

Following the Iraq conflict, the EU and US have set, as a strategic priority, the advancement of "democracy, freedom and human rights" around the world. They have done so, dealing with each issue on a case-by-case basis.

While there is agreement on common goals, there have often been difficulties in turning "shared visions" into concrete actions.

Both sides want to see a "peaceful, united and stable" Iraq. But in an example of the limits on what the EU can do in practical terms to help stability, EU foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg this week failed to agree to widen significantly the scope of the EU's police mission, which trains law and order officials.

While China continues its seemingly unstoppable economic rise, it shows few signs of improving its democratic and human rights record as it marches towards superpower status. The EU has tended to treat China as an equal, showing respect for its economic might and contemplating strategic relations with Beijing. Washington has taken a much more sceptical view, expressing concern about the country's possible threat to stability in the Asia-Pacific region and to Taiwan in particular.

There are also differences over democracy, or the lack of it, in Russia. The need for 'old Europe' to have good working relations with the Kremlin has contrasted sharply with sharp rhetoric that has come both from US Vice-President Dick Cheney and the governments of eastern and central Europe. This is not just a question of Republican tub-thumping. Even the US Democratic Party has adopted a tone on Russia that would be unthinkable in Paris, London or Berlin. During a recent forum in Brussels, 2004 vice-presidential nominee John Edwards bluntly said: "Russia is not a democracy."

But in some areas the EU and US have found ways to co-ordinate policies better.

Both sides have issued joint warnings to Belarus President Alexander Luka-shenko and adopted

similar sanctions, including restricting movements of the regime's officials. A growing number of European politicians, including many in the European Parliament, are calling for US-style funding of opposition parties and non-governmental organisations, echoing a strategy pursued by the US in popular 'revolutions' in Ukraine and Georgia.

On Iran, too, common interests have also successfully been translated into policy. Bush's visit to the EU institutions in February 2005 heralded a new willingness on the part of Washington to go along with EU efforts to solve the conflict diplomatically. In return the EU has urged Iran to suspend all uranium enrichment and appears willing to go along with sanctions if Tehran refuses to do so.

But major differences in strategic outlook that were evident during the Iraq crisis are still at work. There appears to be little common ground when it comes to the EU's stated aim of strengthening multilateral institutions such as the United Nations.

The difference in opinion was highlighted last week when Mark Malloch Brown, the UN deputy secretary-general, one of Kofi Annan's closest advisers, strongly criticised the US' attitude towards the UN.

His remark that US commitment to the UN "ebbs more than it flows" will meet wide agreement in many European capitals. The perceived failure of US politicians to counter UN-bashers is also widely accepted. But Malloch Brown's comments provoked a counter-blast from John Bolton, the US ambassador to the UN, who said they were a "very, very grave mistake".

But it is perhaps the issue of the US' detention camps at Guant�mo Bay in Cuba that illustrates most clearly the divergences between the two sides' approach to the fight against terrorism. EU foreign ministers had agreed a common line at their meeting in Klosterneuburg on 27-28 May, calling for the camps to be closed. Since then, the suicide of three detainees last weekend has fuelled EU criticism of the camps, especially as the deaths were dismissed by US officials as "PR tricks" and "acts of war". At the summit, Sch�ssel, Solana and Barroso will no doubt reinforce their message that the camps should disappear. While the US is unlikely to agree to do so straight after the meeting, for fear of being seen to kowtow to the Europeans, recent events and increasing international condemnation may bolster willingness within the administration to close a facility which has done so much harm to its reputation and produced so little in terms of useful intelligence in the war against terrorism.

Authors take a look at EU-US relations ahead of the EU-US summit in Vienna on 21 June 2006.
Article is part of a European Voice Special Report, 'EU-US Relations'.

EEAS: Countries: United States of America http://www.eeas.europa.eu/us/index_en.htm

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