Obama in Europe

Barack Obama, the president of the United States, begins a tour today (Sunday) of four European countries. This trip to the Old Continent will be his eighth since becoming president and will be very different from the prior visits. To be more exact, Obama will find himself in a very different Europe than the one he toured through in the first year of his term.

Two years ago, Europe was optimistic. The European Union looked to move toward more integration. Two years later, the economic crisis hit Europe hard (Greece, Ireland and Portugal should be rescued from the economic disaster), cuts in the welfare state trigger unrest, immigration feeds populism and populism from one end of the continent to the other has become a serious threat to the process of building Europe. As for foreign affairs, the fact that France and the United Kingdom head the international intervention in Libya doesn’t imply that there has been a movement toward a common foreign policy. Germany isn’t participating in the operation, and without Germany, there is no European politics.

Obama will visit Ireland, the United Kingdom, France and Poland. There will be two highlights: a speech to the British Parliament about U.S.-Europe relations, and the G-8 summit (a meeting between the most industrialized countries plus Russia) that will take place in Deauville, France. The relations between the United States and Europe have improved during Obama’s term. Under his predecessor, George W. Bush, the relationship was at a low point due to the divisions caused by the invasion of Iraq. Obama is not only popular among Europeans, but his political agenda is the closer to Europe’s that that of any other American president in the last few decades. The world has changed, however, and among the evidence for this is the G-8, which has been overtaken by events: today the global economic forum is the G-20, where industrialized nations have to meet with emergent, non-Western powers.

In the globalized world, when economic power moves toward Asia, the United States and Europe — who share values and interests — continue to need each other. However, their interests don’t always coincide. In fact, at times they contradict each other, but both Americans and Europeans understand the challenge that the future holds. In the 19th century, global hegemony belonged to Britain, , and in the 20th century, America. In the 21st century, other powers emerge. Obama’s visit should reinforce the relationship between Europe and the United States.