"Celebrated with enthusiasm on
both sides of the Atlantic, Barack Obama's honeymoon with his European allies
is at risk of becoming as short as it is passionate. … behind the facade of
perfunctory smiles there lurks a deep and acrimonious dissent that no one could
have predicted."
Czech Prime Minister and E.U. President Mirek Topolanek has created chaos by charging that President Obama's rescue plans are 'the road to hell,' and says the U.S. Administration's stimulus package and financial bailout 'will undermine the stability of the global financial markets.' This paves the way for a stormy summit next week between leaders of the Group of 20, March 25.
Celebrated with enthusiasm on
both sides of the Atlantic, Barack Obama's honeymoon with his European allies is
at risk of becoming as short as it is passionate. In just a few days, America's
new president comes to Europe for the first time to participate in a series of
summits, from the G-20 in London to the NATO Council in Strasbourg to a formal
meeting of the E.U. in Prague. Let us expect, and we're certainly not going to complain
about it, solemn reaffirmations of ancient bonds, great displays of friendship
and warm promises of cooperation.
After the support that almost
all Europeans have shown Obama, it couldn't possibly be otherwise. But behind
the facade of perfunctory smiles there lurks a deep and acrimonious dissent
that no one could have predicted in sunnier days.
It all begins with the G-20
and its (shared) goal of combating the global recession. Obama is carrying a
clear message: to avert disaster, we need massive new fiscal stimulus plans and
governments must loosen their purse strings and foster economic growth through increased
consumption. That's what the United States is doing, along with China and
Japan, while Europe - American leaders accuse - is stingy and stubborn.
Continental Europeans (but not Britain, since, as is often the case, it is
quite close to the U.S.) consider it unreasonable to finance new stimulus
packages before knowing for sure that those already adopted are working. Led by
France and Germany, they tend to emphasize the need to regulate the financial
system and define the activities of banks - in other words, prevent what
happened on Wall Street and elsewhere from ever happening again, anywhere in
the world.
The dispute would be merely
doctrinal (and it would likely be discovered that everyone was right) if drops
of poison weren't being added here and there. Paris and Berlin stress the
responsibilities of "Anglo-Saxon capitalism," and find it odd that
the singular lesson should come from the country that was more in error than
any other (even if Obama has nothing to do with this). Europeans also deny that
their stimulus plans are globally inadequate, say they want to defend the solidity
of the euro - and cleverly say "they understand" why a system of
rules and monitoring could prove irritating to Wall Street or the City of London.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
Americans respond by disputing
European estimates about the scale of their stimulus packages, tacitly
confirming that it's difficult to deal with a Europe that lacks unified control
over the economy. Behind the facade of consensus, this is enough to put the outcome of the G-20 at risk. Euro-American
diplomacy, one might point out, has overcome greater obstacles. That's true,
but this time the game is being played in front of unforgiving umpires: the
economic crisis, unemployment, stock markets, and a lack of confidence needed
to revive consumption.
E.U. PRESIDENT: OBAMA RESCUE PLAN 'ROAD TO HELL'
Agreements like those reached
in regard to the IMF won't be enough. Nor will low-profile compromises. And if
no effective meeting of the minds is found between the strategies being pursued
by the U.S. and Europe - and this is now being reaffirmed in Brussels - there are
great risks that in the short-term, recriminations that we thought were
overcome, such as "Europeans don't do their share" and "those arrogant
Americans," will resurface.
Let's be clear: Barack Obama remains
a symbol of hope in the eyes of Europeans, and no one expresses regret at the
absence of his predecessor. What's new is that we're shifting from preliminary
enthusiasm to the verification of positions - and no matter how one paints it,
a failure at the G-20 could fuel other transatlantic disagreements. Might Obama
reopen a dialogue with Russia, revisit the anti-missile shield and de facto
postpone enlarging NATO to include Georgia and Ukraine? The "Old Europe"
to which Italy belongs would applaud with conviction, but the "New Europe"
in the east would seize the occasion to urge the head of the White House to be more
cautious. And now he wants to reach out to Iran?
That's all well and good, but
Europeans (first of all Italians, since they took the initiative) are concerned
that Washington wants to do everything [negotiating with Iran] on its own while
simultaneously urging harsher sanctions against Tehran by E.U. members. And a
new strategy in Afghanistan? Excellent. It was high time. But as far as
deploying additional forces far beyond the [Afghan] elections, how they are used
and even in regard to financial and civil engagement, the European response
falls far short of U.S. wishes.
Posted
by WORLDMEETS.US
And yet, Europe fears the G-2 - that
special relationship between America and China that now seems inevitable. Not
everyone agrees on the profile that the U.S. should adopt in regard to NATO,
and America - this time in agreement with several European states - is unlikely
to appreciate the withdrawal of the Spanish contingent from Kosovo. The United
States would like to see a substantial diversification of Europe's energy
supply, which remains dependent on Moscow and will remain so- regardless of the
Nabucco pipeline
[which skirts Russian territory]. And many Europeans, beginning with Angela Merkel
and Nicolas Sarkozy, have no intention of opening the E.U.'s doors to Turkey,
where Obama will make his last stop and final promises on April 6. These are
minor issues when compared to the depth of converging interests that still
exist between Europeans and Americans. But if the G-20 fails to reconcile the
issues of economic stimulus and global regulation - and if Obama, with his back
against the wall over AIG-Bonus Gate - cannot arrive at an agreement with
Europeans who are well-aware of the fragility of their own decision-making
processes, then a dynamic fuelled by recession will turn every disagreement
into controversy. And on this side of the Atlantic, a period of lost illusions
will begin.
