Pascal Lamy's doubts. Just to what extent is the United States sincere and determined in its participation in multilateral agreements and undertakings in the economic and commercial sectors? It's not me, it's Pascal Lamy who raised the question in a speech he made in Paris last week. He spoke of "American hesitations", explaining: "there is unquestionably a strong temptation not to play the international institutional game. The inclination to unilateralism is linked to the singular feeling of power, and, more prosaically, the fear of having to be subjected to decisions contrary to immediate national interests". In other words, the Americans consider that, given their political and economic clout, they can achieve more by playing on this clout in bilateral negotiations than in subjecting themselves to multilateral mechanisms and regulations. Furthermore, the Administration and the President himself have their hands tied in the field of trade due to "the considerable influence of Congress as it is organized by the American Constitution and strengthened by the system of funding electoral campaigns". Which is a tactful way of saying that private interests sometimes have a defining role in the United States, notably through the Senate.

The result is there to see. The Americans "at times find it hard to comply with WTO decisions that do not suit them". President Bush's renunciation of Kyoto, to which President Clinton had subscribed, has caused a stir. Two other cases have had less reverberations in the media, but are there: the reversal of stance on the Treaty creating an "International Criminal Court", and, most recently, the back-stepping over an Anti-Corruption Convention. Not all, however, is black. Lamy considers as positive the collaboration with the American Administration in settling bilateral differences (he defines as "encouraging" the compromise over bananas, the approach by Bob Zoellick on the subject having been "really constructive"). But he considers on the whole that "definitive choices have not yet been made and that the United States is drawn between contradictory aspirations".

The American language. For their part, the Americans are rather brusque, brutal at times. Priority to national interests is affirmed in all fields. The initiation of proceedings against steel imports was, for Pascal Lamy, a bad surprise. The tone of the new Administration over European measures against the American FSC tax system was tough and even threatening: if the European Commission insists in its request of the WTO that it be able to apply sanctions for billions of dollars, it's a trade war. The backing for a new round of WTO negotiations, which lies at the centre of the European Commission's trade strategy, has been confirmed., but according to Trade Secretary Donald L.. Evans, it's a "ten-year plan". As for bilateral differences with the EU, they only concern a minimum share of reciprocal trade and should not be blown out of all proportion.

Pascal Lamy often himself reiterates that the differences are little compared to the sheer scale of the relations; we do so many things together that it is impossible to avoid hiccups. But the problem he raised in his speech in Paris was more general, it concerned the United States' general attitude towards international governance allowing to "construct a global market with safeguards and disciplines against a slide towards uncontrolled openness".

The Council wants to retain control over the partnership. And what does the Council say, whose job, in the end, it is to set guidelines and take final decisions? It has broadly shared, the past few months, the general guidelines as defined by the Commission in its (published in Nos. 2235-2236 of our EUROPE/Documents series). The attention of ministers focused on the functioning of the partnership. The Commission had suggested simplifying procedures by reducing the technical meetings and their workload, so that the politicians "retain control of a process that risks becoming too bureaucratic and cumbersome", proposing, in not so many words, holding one Summit a year only, but better prepared. The Council said neither yes nor no, but placed emphasis on the need for "regular and frequent" Summits; the impression is that no head of government of a small country wants to give up, in their half-year presidency of the European Council, their moment of glory: their meeting on behalf of Europe with the president of the United States…But the Council's main concern was to retain control over the Euro-American process without leaving the Commission with too much autonomy. European stances must be prepared jointly by the Council and Commission, and the latter may not present the Americans with stances that have not first been defined within the Council. Next week in Gothenburg, we shall have a first example of the way "new look" Summits work, and that will be instructive.

(F.R.).