WHY OBAMA WON'T BOTHER TO ATTEND THE EU SUMMIT
05 febrero 2010
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Published by The Wall Street Journal, US
Months after the European Union ratifies a treaty aimed at increasing its clout in the world, President Barack Obama's decides not to travel to a summit with EU leaders in Spain because he has more important things to do.
Predictably, the decision is interpreted in Europe as a snub for the Spanish government of Jose Luis Zapatero and also for the EU, still recovering from the failure of its efforts to lead by example at the Copenhagen climate talks.
Indeed, the decision reinforced a developing narrative within Europe that was one of the themes of last week's meeting in Davos. With the rise of China, and to a lesser extent economies such as India and Brazil, Europe is less of a player than it was on the world stage.
Add this to Europe's current economic travails—sovereign debt problems within the euro zone, feeble economic growth and badly-wounded banking systems—and the outlook is a testing one for Euro-optimists.
Unsurprisingly, Washington did its best to protest that Europe was still at the top of its agenda. Philip Gordon, the senior State Department official responsible for European affairs, said in an interview that the decision of the president not to come is "not a slight; nor is it a cancellation."
Mr. Gordon, who was in Spain talking to Spanish officials a couple of weeks ago, said he then made it clear that Mr. Obama had not made his mind up about coming to Madrid in May. "We were very specific that we were not in a position to commit to an EU summit in the spring."
He said the decision was no reflection on the U.S.'s bilateral relationship with Spain, which had improved significantly since Mr. Zapatero, directly after he was elected in 2004, withdrew all Spanish troops from Iraq and earned the enmity of President George W. Bush.
"I think we have really turned the corner on a problematic relationship during the Bush administration," Mr. Gordon said.
Neither was it a commentary on the importance of the U.S. relationship to Europe. He echoed comments from his boss Hillary Clinton, who addressed head-on in a speech last week "concern that the Obama administration is so focused on foreign policy challenges elsewhere in the world that Europe has receded in our list of priorities."
"European security remains an anchor of U.S. foreign and security policy," she said.
Mr. Gordon denied suggestions in Europe that the administration had been disappointed by the support given to Mr. Obama's plan to pour 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan – to which European governments have added a further 9,000. "I think we were quite pleased with the response to the president's speech on Afghanistan," he said.
Despite these protestations, many Europeans think the EU and its member governments would be unwise to ignore the message from Mr. Obama's non-cancellation.
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank, said this president does not have the attachment to the old continent of many of his predecessors. "Obama is very unemotional about the E.U.," he said.
The key to getting him to attend E.U. summits is to provide practical solutions to problems. "He's not going to take the E.U. seriously unless the E.U. delivers," he said.
Mr. Grant's point is reinforced by what, according to many European press reports, was European squabbling ahead of the Madrid meeting over transcendental questions such as who was going to sit next to Mr. and Mrs.
Obama at the summit dinner, who would shake Mr. Obama's hand first (Mr. Zapatero) and who would sit to his right (Herman Van Rompuy, new president of the European Council).
Indeed, the whole episode raises the question of what are summits for, a question that U.S. officials also seem implicitly to be asking themselves.
Antonio Missiroli, director of studies at the European Policy Centre in Brussels, says Europeans have a tendency to call for summits at the drop of a hat, the latest example being after the Haiti earthquake disaster.
"There is a paradox," he said. "It's certainly true that Europeans have too many summits. Whenever there's a problem, the Europeans say we need a summit."
Annual European summits might be a sensible idea with countries with which, for example, the Europeans have an underdeveloped relationship and are seeking a closer one, he said. "But if there is one country where we don't need an annual summit it is with the U.S.," he said.
The sheer magnitude of trans-Atlantic contacts over every conceivable topic, from airline security to financial regulation to Afghanistan, means that leaders don't need to get together annually. And if they do want to chat, there's always the regular summits of NATO, the Group of Eight and the Group of 20.
Despite the frequency of these contacts, the episode does show that trans-Atlantic communication isn't always exemplary. Many hours after the Wall Street Journal first broke the story that the president didn't have Madrid in his spring travel plans, the Spanish government was still planning for his visit.
However, intra-European communication might also need work. Baroness Ashton, the new EU foreign minister, reportedly said afterwards she had known President Obama might not come all along.
Months after the European Union ratifies a treaty aimed at increasing its clout in the world, President Barack Obama's decides not to travel to a summit with EU leaders in Spain because he has more important things to do.
Predictably, the decision is interpreted in Europe as a snub for the Spanish government of Jose Luis Zapatero and also for the EU, still recovering from the fact that its efforts to lead by example at the Copenhagen climate talks ended badly when it was excluded from the final deal-making.
Indeed, the decision reinforced a developing narrative within Europe that was one of the themes of last week's meeting in Davos. With the rise of China, and to a lesser extent economies such as India and Brazil, Europe is less of a player than it was on the world stage.
Add this to Europe's current economic travails—sovereign debt problems within the euro zone, feeble economic growth and badly-wounded banking systems—and the outlook is a testing one for Euro-optimists.
Unsurprisingly, Washington did its best to protest that Europe was still at the top of its agenda.
Months after the European Union ratifies a treaty aimed at increasing its clout in the world, President Barack Obama's decides not to travel to a summit with EU leaders in Spain because he has more important things to do.
Predictably, the decision is interpreted in Europe as a snub for the Spanish government of Jose Luis Zapatero and also for the EU, still recovering from the failure of its efforts to lead by example at the Copenhagen climate talks.
Indeed, the decision reinforced a developing narrative within Europe that was one of the themes of last week's meeting in Davos. With the rise of China, and to a lesser extent economies such as India and Brazil, Europe is less of a player than it was on the world stage.
Add this to Europe's current economic travails—sovereign debt problems within the euro zone, feeble economic growth and badly-wounded banking systems—and the outlook is a testing one for Euro-optimists.
Unsurprisingly, Washington did its best to protest that Europe was still at the top of its agenda. Philip Gordon, the senior State Department official responsible for European affairs, said in an interview that the decision of the president not to come is "not a slight; nor is it a cancellation."
Mr. Gordon, who was in Spain talking to Spanish officials a couple of weeks ago, said he then made it clear that Mr. Obama had not made his mind up about coming to Madrid in May. "We were very specific that we were not in a position to commit to an EU summit in the spring."
He said the decision was no reflection on the U.S.'s bilateral relationship with Spain, which had improved significantly since Mr. Zapatero, directly after he was elected in 2004, withdrew all Spanish troops from Iraq and earned the enmity of President George W. Bush.
"I think we have really turned the corner on a problematic relationship during the Bush administration," Mr. Gordon said.
Neither was it a commentary on the importance of the U.S. relationship to Europe. He echoed comments from his boss Hillary Clinton, who addressed head-on in a speech last week "concern that the Obama administration is so focused on foreign policy challenges elsewhere in the world that Europe has receded in our list of priorities."
"European security remains an anchor of U.S. foreign and security policy," she said.
Mr. Gordon denied suggestions in Europe that the administration had been disappointed by the support given to Mr. Obama's plan to pour 30,000 more troops in Afghanistan – to which European governments have added a further 9,000. "I think we were quite pleased with the response to the president's speech on Afghanistan," he said.
Despite these protestations, many Europeans think the EU and its member governments would be unwise to ignore the message from Mr. Obama's non-cancellation.
Charles Grant, director of the Centre for European Reform, a London-based think tank, said this president does not have the attachment to the old continent of many of his predecessors. "Obama is very unemotional about the E.U.," he said.
The key to getting him to attend E.U. summits is to provide practical solutions to problems. "He's not going to take the E.U. seriously unless the E.U. delivers," he said.
Mr. Grant's point is reinforced by what, according to many European press reports, was European squabbling ahead of the Madrid meeting over transcendental questions such as who was going to sit next to Mr. and Mrs.
Obama at the summit dinner, who would shake Mr. Obama's hand first (Mr. Zapatero) and who would sit to his right (Herman Van Rompuy, new president of the European Council).
Indeed, the whole episode raises the question of what are summits for, a question that U.S. officials also seem implicitly to be asking themselves.
Antonio Missiroli, director of studies at the European Policy Centre in Brussels, says Europeans have a tendency to call for summits at the drop of a hat, the latest example being after the Haiti earthquake disaster.
"There is a paradox," he said. "It's certainly true that Europeans have too many summits. Whenever there's a problem, the Europeans say we need a summit."
Annual European summits might be a sensible idea with countries with which, for example, the Europeans have an underdeveloped relationship and are seeking a closer one, he said. "But if there is one country where we don't need an annual summit it is with the U.S.," he said.
The sheer magnitude of trans-Atlantic contacts over every conceivable topic, from airline security to financial regulation to Afghanistan, means that leaders don't need to get together annually. And if they do want to chat, there's always the regular summits of NATO, the Group of Eight and the Group of 20.
Despite the frequency of these contacts, the episode does show that trans-Atlantic communication isn't always exemplary. Many hours after the Wall Street Journal first broke the story that the president didn't have Madrid in his spring travel plans, the Spanish government was still planning for his visit.
However, intra-European communication might also need work. Baroness Ashton, the new EU foreign minister, reportedly said afterwards she had known President Obama might not come all along.
Months after the European Union ratifies a treaty aimed at increasing its clout in the world, President Barack Obama's decides not to travel to a summit with EU leaders in Spain because he has more important things to do.
Predictably, the decision is interpreted in Europe as a snub for the Spanish government of Jose Luis Zapatero and also for the EU, still recovering from the fact that its efforts to lead by example at the Copenhagen climate talks ended badly when it was excluded from the final deal-making.
Indeed, the decision reinforced a developing narrative within Europe that was one of the themes of last week's meeting in Davos. With the rise of China, and to a lesser extent economies such as India and Brazil, Europe is less of a player than it was on the world stage.
Add this to Europe's current economic travails—sovereign debt problems within the euro zone, feeble economic growth and badly-wounded banking systems—and the outlook is a testing one for Euro-optimists.
Unsurprisingly, Washington did its best to protest that Europe was still at the top of its agenda.
