Taking Obama’s Nobel Prize Away

Europe has the American president it has dreamt of, but it has one trouble with him: His Noble Peace Prize needs to be taken away. After one year, Europe is mainly lamenting over Obama. He transformed America’s image into a friendly one, but he is first and foremost the President of the United States, whose duty it is to protect the interests of his country.

Several European reactions resemble the sigh of a frustrated lover.

A final nail in the coffin was Obama’s refusal to participate in the traditional European Union-U.S. summit held in Spain this year.

Until Obama’s presidency, the rotating President of the European Council held a meeting with the American president twice per year. It is not the first time Obama has neglected Europe. He missed the 20th anniversary of the Berlin Wall’s destruction and the Sept. 1 commemoration in Westerplatte. [Sept. 1, 1939: Nazi Germany invaded Westerplatte in Poland, which began World War II.*]

In addition, he chose the date of Sept. 17 to announce the change of politics toward Russia at the expense of the missile shield. [Sept. 17 is a symbolic date in Poland: On this date in 1939, the USSR invaded Poland from the East without a formal declaration of war, only 16 days after Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany from the West.*]

But let us cease this inventory. What are more important are the reasons for this affront. We can choose between two hypotheses. The first is a short one: Obama is busy solving internal problems such as health care reform or unemployment.

However, the very-busy-at home Obama found time to visit Indonesia, Australia and other players of the multi-polar world. It seems that these places are simply more interesting than Europe to Obama.

According to the second, longer hypothesis, since the Cold War has ended, the American global strategy is transforming because transatlantic solidarity cannot depend on only the fear of the USSR. The experts claim that the most serious risk for transatlantic relations is not Obama’s absence from the summits, but rather the lack of ability of European leaders to conform to the changes occurring in the world.

It is very visible in Brussels. Europe is currently not attractive for the U.S. Washington had hopes connected to the Lisbon Treaty. The problematic Lisbon Treaty was supposed to create the famous “one telephone number for Europe,” through which the American president could obtain direct contact with a European politician representing all the 27 E.U. member states, not only to discuss the difficult but developing economic links, but also the big 21st century challenges: terrorism, Iran, Afghanistan, energy and cyber-warfare.

Obama did call, too. He heard the Flemish accent of Herman Van Rompuy [President of the European Council*] and the British accent of some baroness [Baroness Catherine Ashton, High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy*]. The protagonists from the second league were chosen for their offices so that the main decisions could still be made not in Brussels, but in the main capitals of the member states. It is almost as if the European Union chose a provincial judge for president, and some provincial sheriff was given the administration of foreign affairs while they were both asked to answer phone calls from Putin or Hu Jintao and discuss nuclear weapon issues, for example.

Maybe Obama has realized that the strongest E.U. member states do not care for the Lisbon Treaty and concluded that if he still needs to talk to everyone individually, he does not feel like traveling across the Atlantic just to participate in another summit that will not produce any results.

Maybe Obama has concluded that he does not need backslapping friends, but partners to build strategies. This goal is easier to achieve in NATO.

Either way, Obama is not able to return the Nobel Prize because he has already spent the 1 million Euros on his partners — the poor ones.

*Translator’s notes.