Hugo Brady: Europeans probably need to accept they have missed an opportunity
Digg
del.icio.us
Facebook
Reddit
Google
Stumble Upon
Fark
Newsvine
YahooBuzz
Bebo
Twitter
Independent Minds
In his memoir, Dreams from My Father, the young Barack Obama is surprised by his own reaction when he visits Europe on a post-graduate "grand tour". Somehow the place, that has always drawn legions of reverential Americans to revel in culture and shared ancestry, leaves him cold. He makes for Africa instead, the continent to which he feels a more visceral connection.
That episode should have been warning enough to Europe's leaders: the world is changing fast. This US President will not waste time visiting the old continent unless it has something new to say.
And why should he? Obama's first experience of the Union was a depressing and substance-free summit in Prague last April where he was hosted by a Czech government, then the holder of the EU's rotating presidency, which had just fallen. Little he has experienced since then has convinced him that he should take the Europeans seriously as a global force.
Optimists hoped that the EU's Lisbon Treaty would put an end to such embarrassments and help the EU craft a credible common foreign policy. The Treaty abolishes the role of the rotating presidency in foreign policy in favour of a full-time EU president and a more powerful High Representative for Foreign Affairs. But instead, Europe's decline seems to be accelerating as it is sidelined in Copenhagen, dismissed by the Chinese and despaired of by the Americans.
The reality is that the Lisbon Treaty is just a piece of paper. It cannot by itself cure the Europeans of their weakness for circuitous arguments and tendency to offer up process as product. On top of this, Cathy Ashton, the EU's current High Representative, will need at least two years to implement and bed down the Treaty's foreign policy provisions.
Depressingly, the Europeans probably need to accept that they have missed the opportunity Obama's election represented, at least for now.
Hugo Brady is a senior research fellow at the Centre for European Reform
View all comments that have been posted about this article.
Offensive or abusive comments will be removed and your IP logged and may be used to prevent further submission. In submitting a comment to the site, you agree to be bound by the Independent Minds Terms of Service.
- Print Article
- Email Article
-
Click here for copyright permissions
Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited
Comments
I don't quite agree with the overall tone of this article. Baroness (labourite) Ashton was not requested to go to Washington and go down on one knee to renew Lord Blair's oath of allegiance to the United States. This game was played before but is now increasingly out of tune.
We are of course conscious of our relative weakness but when you write " Pdt Obama did not take Europeans as a global force" it was never our intention either, is it yours ? Those times are gone and will not come back.
I however notice that we are good enough to send troops in order to cushion American blunders in the Middle-East where they started outmoded colonial wars ( I thought Great-Britain already enjoyed some experience in Afghanistan ?) and now that Nato is involved in this senseless affairs, thanks to a unique diplomatic trick of dear G.W.Bush, we are also responsible for any failure of American cum British enterprises in this country.
There is also an interesting point which you mentioned but with a certain lack of courtesy when you stated " Europe left him cold: he makes for Africa instead, in which he feels a more visceral connection". Sorry, but I shall not fall in that kind of trap as it should really be too easy to retort with acid comments.
I have just read the high feats of your parliamentaries and their fake expenses, not bad after all for a democracy which is neither better nor worse than ours (I mean, on this old contemptible continent). By the way, should Great-Britain have wholeheartedly entered the European Union and not reluctantly with a number of "opts-out" , whilst making sheep's eyes to G.W.Bush and now Hussein Barack Obama, it is possible that Europe should be miles ahead ?
Of course, I have a clear perception of our shortcomings but are you conscious that you –as a nation- are more of a deadweight than part of a common design ?.
Please next time, think twice before writing such an aggressive paper.
Maxim02