Resurfacing Animosity Awaits Bush in Europe
Post-Sept. 11 Unity Gives Way to Clashing Values
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By T.R. Reid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, May 22, 2002; Page A29
LONDON -- At first, Sept. 11 seemed to shrink the Atlantic. Just hours after the buildings toppled, Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, assured Americans that their allies stood "shoulder to shoulder" with them. In a unanimous vote on Sept. 12, the NATO alliance declared that the attack on the United States was an attack on all NATO nations. Even that venerable organ of Euro-left anti-Americanism, France's Le Monde newspaper, declared: "We are all Americans now."
That was then. Today, the United States and Western Europe are drifting apart again -- in policy, in values, in global ambitions. The differences are amplified by a clash of aspirations, as Europeans openly assert their goal of creating a continental "superpower" that can equal or exceed the United States in global influence.
Many European officials, columnists and academics now depict the United States as a selfish, gun-happy "hyperpower" that believes force is the sole solution to terrorism. Chris Patten, the European Union's commissioner for external affairs, recently told the Guardian newspaper that he hopes the United States won't go into "unilateralist overdrive."
When President Bush arrives in Germany today to begin a week-long tour that will also take him to France, Italy and Russia, he will come face to face with sentiments like these. In Berlin, tens of thousands of demonstrators got started yesterday, taking to the streets to condemn any widening of the war on terrorism.
Even in Britain, the most loyal U.S. ally in Europe, there is strong pressure these days to lean away from the United States and closer to the continent. "Tony Blair has to choose," said political analyst Will Hutton, author of a much-discussed new book about Britain's place in the world. "And the fact is, the United Kingdom is European, not American, in attitudes as well as geography."
For their part, Americans sometimes write off Western Europe as a collection of feuding post-colonial nations that haven't awakened to the new era of market economics. A former U.S. ambassador to France, Felix Rohatyn, suggested recently that France risks being held back by "nostalgia for past grandeur."
Another U.S. view is that Europe is too quick to judge the United States as preferring to act alone.
In an interview with German television before he departed, Bush said: "I believe in alliances. I know America can't win the war on terror alone.
"I understand there's some reluctance about some of the positions I take," Bush added. "I speak my mind. There's no doubt where I stand. And I remember when Ronald Reagan came to Germany, he said, 'Mr. Gorbachev, tear down' the whole wall. He didn't say tear down a couple of bricks. He said tear the whole thing down. And I guess I tend to speak that way, too."
Despite arguments and occasional insults, financial and industrial links between the United States and Western Europe are stronger than ever. In the past decade, there have been tidal waves of transatlantic investment. Millions of Americans now work for European companies, and vice versa.
A common commitment to free speech and democratic governments creates a political bond and a shared determination to spread these "Western" values to the rest of the world. European troops are fighting alongside Americans in Afghanistan.
And yet, there is a sense on both sides of the Atlantic that the emotional connection forged just after Sept. 11 couldn't last. "The whole concept of the 'West' feels out of date now," said Dominique Moisi, a French political analyst. "September 11 brought us together, but only temporarily. We have to realize that major differences exist across the Atlantic and will not go away. Europe and the U.S. will have to live with them."
Some of the issues that divide the two sides -- how best to deal with global warming, for instance -- could be resolved relatively soon through diplomacy and compromise. An election could change things, too: Many of the specific disagreements came up after Bush entered office. But the process of "continental drift" is also propelled by long-term forces that probably won't go away.
A key development is the increasing unification of Europe. The collective power that comes from membership in a transcontinental community has given many Europeans the sense that the EU should stand equal with, or ahead of, the United States on the world stage. "We are building a new world superpower," Blair said, an idea that is echoed by many other European leaders.
The "United States of Europe" that Winston Churchill dreamed of has not yet arrived, but the idea has made considerable progress. Today's 15-nation European Union has its own parliament, president, court system, bill of rights, flag, anthem and national day. Much of Western Europe is effectively borderless -- travelers can breeze through a dozen countries without showing their passports. And a dozen countries now use the common currency, the euro.
The EU is bigger than the United States in population, and conducts roughly the same amount of external trade. It gives away more foreign aid and contributes more to the United Nations and other international organizations than the United States offers. With the EU set to add about 10 new member countries over the next few years, it could soon pass the United States in gross national product as well.
To Americans, comfortable with their nation's status as the planet's sole superpower, the idea of a larger, richer power popping up in Europe can be unsettling. "America will have to undergo the difficult psychological task of recognizing that Europe is no longer the junior partner whose acquiescence to U.S. views can be taken for granted," said Jessica T. Mathews of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Perhaps the greatest proponent of the view that a new European superpower is about to take America's place is Romano Prodi. The engaging, talkative academic-turned-politician was formerly prime minister of Italy and is now president of the European Commission, the EU's executive branch.
"There is a rhythm of global dominance, and no country remains the first player forever," Prodi said. "Maybe [U.S. dominance] won't last. And who will be the next leading player? Maybe next will be China. But more probably, before China, it will be the united Europe. Europe's time is almost here."
Prodi has argued that the EU is already the global agenda-setter on such issues as global warming, food safety and international trade -- areas where angry disagreements between the United States and the EU have undermined the relationship.
Prodi conceded, though, that Europe "has not been a global power" in foreign affairs. This is partly because Europe cannot match U.S. military clout, and partly because the 15 nations often can't agree on positions. When they can, the EU often seems to be shopping for opportunities to counter U.S. positions.
While the Bush administration treats North Korea as an "evil" outcast nation, the EU has engaged it with a series of trade and policy missions. The EU is working with President Fidel Castro of Cuba. As the White House tilts more and more toward Israel, the EU has emerged as the strongest champion and chief financial supporter of the Palestinian Authority.
The United States and the EU often seem to be competing for the affections of Vladimir Putin's Russia, with Europe loudly taking Putin's side in the argument over Bush's plan for a missile defense system.
Although Europeans are fighting in Afghanistan, they have consistently argued that it takes more than armed might to defeat terrorism and that the United States should put more into development aid and political negotiations.
There is also a deep-seated difference in values. "The most serious threat to the U.S.-Europe alliance is the fundamental approach to global governance," said John Palmer, director of the European Policy Center, a research organization based in Brussels.
"The European Union, from its own experience of creating a multi-nation unit, is committed to multilateralism," Palmer said. "That means a global base of law, with all nations giving up some sovereignty in the interest of cooperative solutions. But the U.S., in many cases, rejects the cooperative approach. Washington wants to go it alone, particularly under Bush. It's a basic difference of philosophy."
European policymakers can reel off a string of issues on which there is such division. Whether it is the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the new International Criminal Court, the international ban on land mines or the biodiversity treaty, EU members uniformly support the global, collective solution, and the United States does not.
With the United States increasing military spending, there could be a future, Moisi said, in which "the U.S. does the fighting, the U.N. does the feeding, and the EU does the funding." Some Europeans would accept that formula, Moisi said, particularly if an expanded EU is recognized as an economic power equal to the United States.
"But is this kind of division of labor any basis for a genuine partnership?" Moisi said. "That is the central question for the Atlantic alliance today."
© 2002 The Washington Post Company
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