EU-Digest editorial – The Obama Presidency – Europe should throttle down on their expectations
EU-Digest editorial on a new relationship between the EU and the US following the election of Barack Obama
Barack Obama: Europe should throttle down their expectations
Even though Obama's victory was a watershed political development of historic proportions, the European public and policy makers should not see him as the “new Messiah” or expect that the transatlantic relationship has suddenly become a “marriage made in heaven”. The reality is that Obama is the US President elect and that his main objective is to serve the American people and US interests. Therefore his principal focus, at least initially during his Presidency, will be to try and clean up the terrible mess the Republican Administration has left him. Obviously European relations are very important to any US Administration, but one should also realize that given Europe's already solid long term relationship and existing mechanisms of cooperation with the US, Europe will not be at the very top of Obama's Administration "to-do" list. European leaders therefore need to move forward with their own views and plans about solving the global financial crisis, or in dealing with environmental or foreign policy issues, independent of what the new Administration is saying or doing. At the same time the EU and the US should continue working together to uphold Western values, even though they might have a different interpretation or implementation of this philosophy.
uropeans and Americans must also not make the mistake to identify Mr. Obama as a left wing politician in the European sense of the word. If he was a European politician he would probably be catogorized as a “right from center” politician. Francis Wurtz, leader of the left wing Group in the European Parliament, said pressure from Wall Street to reassert US leadership of the financial world, which it lost to London after the Enron corporate scandal, was likely to be very high on the new president's agenda as he deals with the financial crisis. The challenges are therefore numerous for the EU and regardless of what the new Obama Administration does or not do, the EU must take a variety of independent decisions, to include, a realistic review of NATO's Afghan mission, dealing with the instability in Pakistan, reviewing Russia's long term relationship with the EU based on common needs, managing the emergence of China as a world power and partner of the EU, dealing with the the Middle East and Palestinian issues in a more balanced political and economic way than in the past. The EU must also realize that US support for a break-through global deal on climate change is not certain at all, even with Obama as the president. US domestic action to cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is unlikely to be dramatic to say the least. The best the EU can expect is that the US Congress and Senate will sign off on the 2007 bi-partisan American Climate Security Act, proposed by US Senators Joe Lieberman (Independent Democrat, Connecticut) and John Warner (Republican, Virginia). While the relationship with Russia is a top priority for Europe, the Obama Administration will in all likelihood be dealing with it in the context of a variety of strategic relationships. Advisers to Obama have already stated that the missile defense shield alongside the Russian border, planned by the Bush Administration, is not high on their agenda.
On the other hand President Obama can be expected to demand more support from the Europeans, particularly as it relates to the NATO activities in Afghanistan. In return, Europeans must call on the US to deliver solid progress on issues that are of key importance to Europe, such as the financial crisis and the control mechanisms to be established, climate change, and non-proliferation. Equally urgent is a new US policy towards the UN, the International Criminal Court of Justice and the closing down of the Guantanamo Bay prison. All this while a time bomb is ticking away for the US in the form of a current account deficit of over 10 trillion dollars. To finance both the current account deficit and its own foreign investments, the United States must import about $1 trillion of foreign capital every year or more than $4 billion every working day. This situation is unsustainable in both international financial and domestic political (i.e., trade policy) terms. Right now this debt is covered largely by China and a variety of other countries. If any of these countries withdraws their support of the US economy the dollar won't be worth the paper it is printed on. Consequently the US bargaining position in the world market place has weakened. We can be sure the new US President will be dealing with that as a critical priority.
A Chinese proverb says “these are interesting times”. Yes they are indeed. So, regardless of the fact that the EU wants to, and should give Mr. Obama the benefit of the doubt, time is pressing and it certainly won't hurt the EU to be more assertive when it comes to urging the new US Administration to move swiftly in a more realistic direction than it has done during the past eight years.
Labels: EU, G20, Obama Administration, US, US Foreign Policy, World Economy
