Don't call US, we'll call EU

Our video-ally Obama

The first “Pacific” US president, as he describes himself, is not particularly partial to Europe, but he still needs the three main continental powers. The upshot, explains Le Monde, is a long-distance relationship via videoconference.

Published on 16 May 2010 at 23:56
FutureAtlas  | Don't call US, we'll call EU

"We want to be heard, listened to, let’s put our heads together!” What Nicolas Sarkozy declaimed to Columbia University students in New York in March, on the eve of a dinner date with Barack Obama, said loud and clear what plenty of European leaders think behind closed doors about America’s first self-styled “Pacific” president. This was the cry of allies who feel neglected. What he didn’t say, though, was that five days previous, Europeans had indeed been heard in the White House. But via videoconference, and in a select group. Barack Obama took the initiative in late 2009 to create a new format, which diplomats have dubbed the "heads-of-state quad”: the Big Four being the US, UK, France & Germany.

The Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown (or his successor) and Angela Merkel quartet is to “meet” monthly, as a rule, on the screen. They’re to address a wide array of weighty issues, viz. Iran, Afghanistan, the Middle East, the G20, financial regulation. The quad isn’t quite new: it’s been around since the end of the Cold War, albeit on a lower rung of the diplomatic ladder, generally at the foreign ministers’ level. It now forms a mini-directorate, a contact group of European leaders with enough clout to help tackle the problems facing Obama.

United States a receding power in the world

Major and minor bones of contention have been piling up over the past year between Obama and Europe. Upon arriving at the Oval Office, Obama took down the bust of Winston Churchill that Tony Blair had given George W. Bush. The British got the message: the “special relationship” was to be mothballed. Eastern Europeans were in for let-downs too with the unilateral shelving of the missile defence shield. In November 2009, Obama skipped the commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the crumbling of the Berlin wall – after having decided, on the other hand, that his presence was a must in Copenhagen to back Chicago’s bid to host the Olympics. A month after that, again in Copenhagen, he thrashed out climate change with the “emerging countries” – without inviting Europeans to the table.

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Barack Obama grew up in Hawaii and Indonesia. His Kenyan father was among the 1960s African elite intent on emancipating the Southern countries left in ruins by the departing old empires. As a matter of fact, his own grandfather had worked as a "boy" for British colonists. During his studies at Harvard, Obama took a keen interest in the Third World. An attachment to Europe does not take pride of place in the American president’s world view. In fact, Obama’s detractors are forever rebuking him for engaging with America’s foes more than with its friends. This administration sees the United States as a receding power in the world, comments Eric Edelman, ex-No 3 at the Pentagon under George W. Bush, and it seems to think the only pole declining faster is Europe.

Europe and US account for 54 % of world GDP

Obama feels that in a fluctuating world the ties to Europe, based on shared values, needn’t be celebrated forever. His rapport with the Old Continent reflects a want of personal affinity, disappointment at Europe’s efforts in Afghanistan, and continually having to patch things up when his administration comes under fire. He prefers to delegate to vice-president Joe Biden or secretary of state Hillary Clinton. Obama tends to prioritise Russia, even if that means going over the heads of the Europeans. The latter have tried to clear up their suspicions of a link between the START treaty on nuclear arsenals and the drawdown of the American missile defence shield.

Though Europe feels left out, it remains pivotal to the US in facing major challenges. It is together with Europe that Obama is trying to rally countries together to impose autonomous sanctions on Iran. Europe and the US account for 54 % of world GDP, as against 16% for the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India, China), which is heterogeneous and disunited. After the less than impressive diplomatic appointments under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, Obama plainly concluded that only the big European states had the clout to weigh in on the issues that really matter to him. The quad’s discretion is understandable: it bypasses the new European institutions, and it might be seen as the avatar of the West that Barack Obama is trying to set himself apart from so as to address the rest of the world more effectively. Whether it’s a consolation prize or an effective foreign policy tool, this is the dawn of transatlantic video-diplomacy.

Opinion

The real President of Europe is American

The President of the United States (POTUS) has become the President of the European Council (POTEC), says Jean Quatremer on his behind-the-scenes-in-Brussels blog “Coulisses de Bruxelles”. The French journalist recounts that Barack Obama rang up European leaders – especially Angela Merkel ­– repeatedly till the EU 27 finally put together an emergency stabilisation package. Herman Van Rompuy, Quatremer tongue-and-cheeks, “is no longer president of the Council of European heads of state. The US president has ousted him in a successful coup and decided to take European affairs in hand himself: he’s tired of seeing all these brats incapable of getting it together to save their single currency despite the menace of a looming tsunami liable to lay waste to the planet."

"Obama’s saving interference in European affairs shows how dysfunctional the Union is for want of strong leaders capable of putting the common weal before their national interests,” fumes Quatremer. “Their weakness, their want of long-term vision, their political cowardice is manifestly multiplied by 27 in Brussels. Mediocrity breeds nothing but mediocrity."

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