By Bruno Waterfield - 18th June 2005
Europe’s leaders will be hoping a busy week for the EU on the international stage this week will show it is ‘business as usual’.
EU officials and diplomats are hoping that a Trans-Atlantic summit and international conference on Iraq can show the world that Europe is still functioning.
On Monday, the EU and US rendez-vous in Washington for Trans-Atlantic talks ahead of an Iraq summit in Brussels involving over v80 countries.
Early evidence is that Europe’s constitution crisis has not turned the EU’s gaze inward.
European Commission officials stress that in for EU-US relations it is “business as usual”.
“There is a much more positive backdrop this year that for the last few summits,” one senior official told journalists.
European and US leaders are looking forward to making common declarations on the ‘promotion of democracy’, the Middle East, UN reform, on counter-terrorism, non-proliferation, conflict prevention and crisis response.
But a key sense is that it will be back to the future for the EU-US relationship with greater Trans-Atlantic economic cooperation and growth the centre-piece of the June 20 summit.
There may be harsh words over the Boeing-Airbus dispute, Microsoft and an EU lecture on how best to resolve textile issue with China, but despite such flies in the ointment, the momentum will be forwards.
“Neither of us is looking to push fingers in each other’s eyes or ram difficult issues down each other’s throats,” said an EU trade official.
Growing agreement on market regulation, “open and competitive capital markets”, intellectual property enforcement and growth focused economic policy will be much vaunted on both sides of the Atlantic.
European and American leaders will be highlighting greater economic convergence
between the EU and US.
But Europe itself will remain deeply divided over proposals for economic and perceptions of an ‘Anglo-Saxon’ economic reform agenda.
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