Washington / Brussels, 30/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - In a statement made in Washington following his decision not to go along with the Kyoto Protocol (see yesterday's EUROPE, p.10), George W. Bush said that he wanted to explain "to our friends" that he would not agree to a plan that would harm America's economy and workers, stipulating that the "real friends" were those able to clearly express their disagreement. Friends, his Administration will meet on 2 and 3 April, as the European Troika will be on a visit to Washington with as sole goal to understand the position of the United States and sound out its intentions. The Troika will be made up of Margot Wallstrom, European Commissioner for the environment, Kjell Larsson, President of the "Environment" Council, and a representative of the future Belgian Presidency. Monday, they will meet Senator Bob Smith, Chairman of the Senate's Environment Committee. The following day, meetings are scheduled with, among others, Christine Todd Whitman, who heads the National Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Gary Edson, Advisor to George W. Bush, and State Secretary Richard Armitage. On 4 April, the Troika will be in Ottawa to meet, among others, the Minister of the Environment, David Anderson.
In Brussels, qualifying Bush's attitude as "disquieting", European Parliament President Nicole Fontaine denounced the "irresponsibility" of the American President and urged environment ministers meeting in Kiruna this weekend to demonstrate the EU's determination to pursue the path of the Kyoto Protocol. Similar reaction on the part of Caroline Jackson, Chair of the EP's Environment Committee, who, qualifying the decision of the Bush Administration as going "back to the stone age", expressed the hope that the EU and Japan would go ahead without the United States and ratify Kyoto. "Then we can gradually negotiate to bring the developing countries on board", she declared. The Group of the European United Left-Nordic Green Left urged the European Commission and EU Member States to "use all available means to persuade the Bush administration to change its mind", and the Greens-EFA called on European consumers to boycott American oil companies.
Exxon (Esso), Texaco and Chevron: Europe must react to the irresponsibility of American policies (…) at the pump, stated Alexandre de Roo, for whom a polite demand, such as that sent by the Stockholm European Summit, will obviously not change American opinion. The fact is that the letter sent to Mr Bush by Mr Persson and Mr Prodi (see EUROPE of 24 March, p.11), still remained unanswered on 30 March.
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, for his part, underlined, in the presence of George Bush who he met in Washington, on Thursday, that the American authorities would be called upon, "to take a decision as to how they, to put it casually, want to play it with the protocol and with the ongoing conference" that will take place next July in Bonn. Whether they will, on the one hand side, which will be a possibility, give an opportunity to others to still continue with what they think is right by not voting against it or to not do so", he wondered before "His Excellence, The President".