US European relations. Convergence or Divergence?
Political analysts on both sides of the Atlantic are at odds in determining the state of US/European relations following the President’s recent “European vacation.”
Enzo Bettiza, international analyst for Italy’s La Stampa, finds Bush’s first trip to Europe rich in “geopolitical symbolism.” He is referring to the destinations with which the US president chose to open and close his European itinerary: Spain, Poland, and Slovenia.
As the cultural and linguistic template of Latin America, Madrid was happy to have the opportunity to demonstrate its world influence. Newspapers from across that nation’s political spectrum agreed that Bush’s choice of Spain as first stop was a diplomatic triumph for their country.
Spain and the United States share economic interests in Latin America as the continent’s two top foreign investors. Conservative prime minister Aznar also demonstrated his support for missile defense. However, there is much that the two countries disagree about: from the Cuban embargo and the Helms-Burton Act to global warming and the Kyoto accords. And even more so, on capital punishment.
During the Cold War, Americans and Europeans converged politically, militarily, and economically against an enemy ideology. With the fall of communism the unity of the West has weakened. For Bettiza, the discord between Europe and the US over missile defense demonstrates that the transatlantic divergences have begun to take precedence over former convergences.
Stateside, The Washington Post’s E. J. Dionne couldn’t disagree more. He believes that, on the basic issues, American and Europeans agree much more than they disagree. For Dionne, the problem is that “our president decided to pretend he had an electoral mandate for a much more conservative program than the voters wanted.” He suggests that there is perhaps more of a political gap between the president and the American electorate than between the citizens of Europe and the United States.
For two generations, Western Euorpe was unified by its fear of the Soviet Union. According to William Safire, today the “glue holding together Europe’s fragile supranational identity” is its “resentment of the unrivaled power of the United States.” The New York Times essayist says that Americans should not fret over being the object of the “unifying force of envy.” In flaunting unilateral arrogance, Bush is supplying “our allies with a necessary psychological substitute for their former fear.”
Returning to the subject of the president’s unusual itinerary: Spain, the NATO summit in Brussels, the EU/US summit in Sweden, Poland, and Slovenia to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, the papers of the spurned “big three” of Europe: France, Germany, and Great Britain were openly vocal about their indignation.
France’s left-leaning Libération, compared Bush’s trip to the “grand tour” of the children of the Bourgeoisie in the early 20th century who were sent by their parents to “polish their wits through exposure to the peculiarities of the Old Continent.”
Berlin’s Tagespiegal pondered “the thoughtlessness of an inexperienced president toward his most important and faithful allies.”
The pro-Bush Times of London, found the president’s itinerary “unfortunate,” featuring as it did, three sets of kings and queens in three days and no “ordinary citizens.” It complained that the American president had planned “more time with minor royalty than with President Putin!”
In an op-ed piece for the New York Times, Anthony Lewis, summed up the
essence of the message Bush offered our European allies: “I’m not
going to do anything about global warming because it needs more scientific
study. But I am going to act urgently to develop a missile defense
system although none have any proven scientific basis and every test so
far has failed.”
And with that Lewis judges that the Europeans received a “fair introduction
to the veritable George W. Bush: a man of strong opinions stubbornly
held, in defiance of reason.” And “a man of charm, easy in human
relations and adept politically, but with a certitude not earned by experience
or accomplishment.”
Returning once again to Bettiza’s “geopolitical symbolism,” by starting in Spain and ending in Slovenia, Bush demonstrated a “strategic sensitivity” all his own. In bypassing Western Europe, he showed that his interests lie elsewhere: in South America tied to the past and present Spanish dynamism and in Eastern Europe once oppressed by the Soviets.
Just how much US/European relations are still blessed by a spirit of convergence is still to be determined. What is certain is that the opinions of commentators on the matter, both here and abroad, continue down paths of divergence.
June 2001
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