Hands across the water

Date: 01/03/01

EUROPE and the United States have had good reason to be wary of each other over the last few months. EU leaders were more than just a little apprehensive about the election of George W. Bush as US president; some of them openly decried it. And who could blame them? After all, this is a man whose seeming indifference to European affairs goes deeper than his inability to distinguish Slovenia from Slovakia. Indeed, he has only visited this continent once in his life and has made no secret of his desire for the US to look increasingly towards Latin America and Asia for future development. His support for a 'Son of Star Wars' missile defence shield has provoked fears of a new nuclear arms race.

The Americans, too, have had real cause for concern about the transatlantic relationship. The Union is moving ahead with controversial plans for a rapid-reaction military force despite fears that it could undermine the NATO alliance. But lately, the continent's most pressing crisis-management needs require slaughterhouses and veterinary vaccines, not tanks and helicopters.

Set this against a backdrop of long-festering trade disputes and frequent meddling in multi-billion-euro merger deals, and you might expect relations to deteriorate further. But developments in recent weeks have all been positive. Bush showed that he takes the transatlantic relationship seriously by choosing the highly-regarded Robert Zoellick - a known quantity on these shores - to be his chief trade negotiator. That Zoellick is chummy with Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy bodes well for progress on disputes over beef, bananas, tax breaks to multinational corporations and so on.

This week's visit to Brussels by Bush's secretary of state, Colin Powell, was similarly encouraging. Powell reassured the European Commission that the US supports the Union's military initiative so long as it "does not conflict with NATO". President Romano Prodi and external relations chief Chris Patten welcomed him with a promise to beef up the twice-yearly EU-US summits by making them launching pads for policy initiatives and not just trouble-shooting sessions. Patten is even planning to issue a paper outlining areas where the two sides share common goals.

So what's the problem? At a time when the EU and the US seem to be moving in separate directions on security and trade policy and even looking to different ends of the world stage, they both showed this week they have not forgotten the importance of real cooperation.

It will take more than handshakes and smiles, but two presidents whose political talents are often underestimated may just be able to pull it off.