Obama Exposes European Weaknesses

Bush was not the problem. Obama is not the solution. One year after the arrival of a Democrat at the White House, disillusionment is felt on both sides on the Atlantic. The allies are realizing — if indeed they were still unaware of it — that misunderstandings go beyond individuals. “Europeans have no confidence in themselves,” an American official lamented recently, tired of being asked about Mr. Obama’s apparent disinterest in the Old Continent. “Americans love to make a show of not understanding a thing about Europe,” retorted a European.

Barack Obama put his foot in it on Monday when he announced he would not be coming to Madrid in May for the summit between the European Union and the United States, a ritual that brings together the president of the U.S., the president of the E.U., the president of the European Commission and the E.U. high representative on foreign affairs.

In Madrid and Brussels, many imputed this decision to the political situation in the U.S., which commits Mr. Obama to focusing on winning back public opinion. José Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission, chided Mr. Obama on his many trips abroad. On the American side, the blunt gesture (the White House had not informed the Spanish ambassador) instead reflects frustration. For Washington, the Lisbon Treaty is not living up to its promises. Though indispensable, Europe is not deemed very efficient.

Essentially, the American president will visit the Europeans when they manage to organize themselves to discuss serious matters.

The prime minister of Spain, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, had made this meeting a priority of his six-month term of the presidency of the E.U. Mr. Obama has already attended two E.U.–U.S. summits and each time he found that nothing emerged from it. In Prague, in April 2009, he avoided the ceremonial dinner. In Washington, in early November, he sent Vice President Joe Biden to represent him at a lunch.

The most influential European capitals do not blame the president and are rather indifferent to Mr. Zapatero’s misfortunes. “Over the years, E.U.–U.S. summits have become pathetic. The fault lies with the Europeans. Instead of discussing the great problems of the world, we get bogged down in arguments about chlorine chicken. The American president finds himself facing a different leader every time who, in most cases, doesn’t know the affairs of the world,” explained one European chancellor.

American diplomats have tried to convey to their European counterparts that it may be useful to get issues that are of direct interest to Mr. Obama back on the agenda. They tried to explain that it is contradictory to aspire to unity while constantly requesting private meetings with Washington. Mr. Obama is exasperated by European expectations that require him to cross the Atlantic just to appear beside European leaders eager for recognition for or understanding about their historical commemorations. Thus, Angela Merkel was aggrieved when Mr. Obama went to the concentration camp of Buchenwald last June, reminding Germany of its Nazi history, but did not take part in the celebrations for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on Nov. 9. Mr. Obama does not have time. “Time is money,” the Europeans were told at a meeting in Brussels.

In fact, the European Union knows it is unable to act on the foreign political stage. “The Lisbon Treaty was meant to provide clarity and continuity to our work. So far, it has failed,” explained a French diplomat. Nobody understands a thing about the distribution of power between the stable presidency of the E.U. (held by Herman Van Rompuy) and the rotational one (held by Mr. Zapatero); there is an obvious power vacuum between the Barroso Commission, invested in again and again by the European Parliament, and the European common diplomatic service of Catherine Ashton, high representative on foreign affairs, which is still not in place.

The Obama administration applauded the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty but not so much the appointment of the Rompuy-Ashton tandem. Washington decided to play along with Lisbon. On Jan. 21, 2010, the government conspicuously “dubbed” Lady Ashton on her first visit to Washington. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton showed her enthusiasm for the “maturation of the E.U.” and gave her an exceptional welcome, with a 90-minute meeting followed by lunch. Philip Gordon, Mrs. Clinton’s assistant for European affairs, remarked that they were pleased to be working with the appointed E.U. representative of foreign policy.

Transatlantic frictions do exist, with the Europeans not always meeting U.S. demands, but they are nothing compared to the animosity of the Bush era. In terms of the financial crisis, the two continents are closer now than they were at the G-20 summits of Washington and London. Mr. Obama’s offensive against bank bonuses has put him in step with Paris and London.

Having denounced Bush’s imperialism, Europeans now criticize Mr. Obama’s powerlessness. They reproach him with his inability to rein in the Chinese at the Copenhagen summit on climate change. “We overestimated his amount of leeway,” explained a French government adviser. “China was facing a weak man,” complained someone close to Mr. Sarkozy. In Paris, we feel that Mr. Obama has been disgraced by the continued expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. Paris is convinced the American president will eventually adopt France’s forceful position on Iran.

The Europeans are made all the more bitter by the affront they suffered at Copenhagen, when they were hoping for a victory. The United States gave the impression they were marginalizing Europe to better negotiate with China and India. Europe failed to come out as a leader for the world. A French diplomat sums up, “When the vital interests of countries are at stake, you should no longer act out of authority or through deterrence.”

Then there is Afghanistan. The Europeans have declared their intentions to send reinforcements to curry favor in Washington but the Americans lament their lack of strategic planning. Contributors are also stingy: the day before the meeting of the NATO defense ministers in Istanbul on 4 February, they were lacking 2,400 trainers for the Afghan security forces.

Mr. Obama should take part in an E.U.–U.S. summit at the end of the year, which will probably coincide with the NATO summit scheduled for November in Lisbon. Until then, Mr. Van Rumpuy, who does not rule out a visit to Washington, hopes to have managed to assert himself.