A Deeper and Wider Atlantic

As the Obama administration set out to define its objectives and priorities for the second term and European leaders re-emerged from an exhausting battle against the Eurozone crisis, time might finally be ripe for a meaningful debate on how to reinvigorate and renew the transatlantic relationship. Bold proposals were being put forward and big ideas were being considered.

Prominent among these was the project of establishing an EU-US free trade area, alternatively known as the ‘Transatlantic Free Trade Area’ (TAFTA), and the vision of a ‘wider Atlantic’ space featuring a more balanced relationship between North Atlantic countries, as represented by NATO and the EU, and the emerging economies in Atlantic Africa and Latin America. The former project focused on strengthening the existing transatlantic bonds as a way to help with each other’s economic challenges while reaffirming transatlantic leadership, the latter put emphasis on the need to reconceptualize the Atlantic altogether by including the North-South and South-South dimensions in future transatlantic policy discussions.

Although separate and at very different stages of development, the two visions could be seen as complementary in the long term as the revitalization of the transatlantic relationship is sought through a twin process of ‘deepening and widening’ of the transatlantic space. Power calculations, economic advantage, similarities of culture and values, and strategic opportunity were among the main considerations that had guided these proposals. US and European leaders seemed to agree that while full recovery and future growth will primarily depend on domestic reform, the success of their societies would also be staked on international initiatives capable of reverting or avoiding what some considered the predicament of Western decline. For their part, countries from the fast-developing Central and Southern Atlantic regions, east and west, might for the first time be in a position to set the terms of a more equal dialogue with the traditionally more developed North based on mutual interests and a sharing of principles.