Europe and the United States in Search of a New Partnership

If, at the time, all international relations experts had entertained any doubt, they would have swept it away: The failure of the Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009 will remain a highlight in the political history of the European Union. Snubbed in the final negotiations, it then entered a period of crisis. It had witnessed the specter of its own marginalization.

Following the Danish episode, Europeans have begun to question Barack Obama. The challenges facing the “trans-Atlantic relationship” have been put on public display, and the E.U.’s exercise in illusion, where it publicly stresses its integration, while being restricted by national interests on a daily basis, has seen its limits. Copenhagen has effectively illustrated the fact that, when divided, the E.U.’s weight grows increasingly relative and, when united — as was generally the case in the climate talks — it does little to reaffirm their influence …

With regards to E.U.-U.S. divergence, it’s no longer a matter of blaming the Republican administration: a Democrat — popular, universally lauded, and apparently willing to invest time in his relationship with the E.U. — has called into question the results of a policy described in Washington as “unproductive.”

This is largely due to the fact that today there is a long list of troublesome issues that can no longer be blamed on the natural targets, the “neocons” of the Bush era. We recently polemicized on the troop reinforcement in Afghanistan, on trading bank data in the name of the fight against terrorism (the SWIFT agreement, rejected by the European Parliament), on the reinforcement of cooperation between NATO and the European Union that was rendered impossible by a dispute between Turkey and Cyprus, but also, and most importantly, by the competition between the two sides and the absence of any common strategic thinking.

The desire in Europe to establish an international framework to fight global warming is at odds with U.S. anxieties over the constraints of multilateralism. This serves to paralyze a possible joint initiative on technology transfers to developing countries, and reinforces the unwillingness of the emerging powers to budge on the issue.

Ultimately, the U.S. administration can no longer hide its incomprehension regarding the European decision-making process. The Lisbon Treaty was meant to establish structural changes and position the E.U. as a genuine “global actor,” with coherent political, economic and security plans. Washington swiftly concluded that, due to its political divisions, the E.U. would not succeed.

In a scathing article published in the March issue of Europe’s World, Kurt Volker, former ambassador to NATO, summarizes: “ … on the most important and difficult challenges, E.U. governments will still hold strongly to their national prerogatives and positions.” Regarding the key functions of the President of the European Council and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs, he notes, “E.U. heads of government instead chose lower key consensus-builders whose role is likely to be that of coordinating member states.”

In short, it is difficult to prioritize a relationship with a Europe that is divided and parochial, even for the most Atlanticist of American leaders.

The future? “Potentially dramatic,” forecasts the think tank Notre Europe, which includes as members Jacques Delors, Joschka Fischer, Romano Prodi, and Guy Verhofstadt. The think tank has just published proposals for a new Euro-American partnership. It diagnosed a double risk: an America in search of new global partners, but weakened by the loss of its European alliance and by the Asian dynamic of globalization; a “pre-Maastricht” Europe obsessed with its national rivalries and its alleged “special relationship” with Washington, increasingly relegated to the role of marginal player in history and in globalization.

The United States, the authors note, may have reasons to doubt that Europe will become a “Switzerland of the world,” but it has to admit that, even while responsible for half of global arms expenditures, it has not managed to eradicate terrorism, emerge from Afghanistan in victory or reverse the dynamics at play in the Middle East. Given its composition, the think tank sees no solution other than wider integration. They consider as evidence the powerlessness of nation-states, as well as the need to generate a “European national interest,” while the Americans give up their illusions of imperial hegemony.

On both sides of the Atlantic, in any case, it may be time to recognize that a new partnership is essential and that, in any event, it should not restore Western leadership, but rather, give rise to new global partners capable of negotiating as equals with all the major players on the international stage.