Brussels, 29/04/2002 (Agence Europe) - On the occasion of their annual summit in Washington on Thursday, the leaders of the Union and the United States will trigger a strengthening of transatlantic co-operation in a vast effort at convincing their respective publics and the rest of the world that this essential partnership - and leadership - is a reality, at a time when the mounting tensions between the two occupy media headlines and has led observers, as well as certain European leaders, to raise questions (see EUROPE of 27 April, pp.8-9 and the public debate between Messrs. Patten and Powell on international relations). The hottest trade issues, especially the escalation of the steel conflict and European threats of sanctioning American tax breaks for exports, are thus also part of this reality and will have a place of choice at this meeting, that will, however, remain resolutely placed under the sign of appeasement and maturity. President George W. Bush, accompanied by his closest collaborators, including Andrew Card, as well as secretary of State Colin Powell, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary to the Treasury, Paul O'Neill, Attorney General John Ashcroft, trade Secretary Don Evans, the Secretary for Agriculture, ann Veneman, Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, will have as interlocutors Messrs. Prodi, Aznar, Solana, Patten, Lamy and Piqué, who will lead a European team.
The Summit will begin at 10.35 hrs., with talks between Bush, Aznar and Prodi, in the Oval Office at the White House, behind closed doors, ahead of a plenary session revolving around the fight against terrorism (Rule of Law, financing terrorist activities and non-proliferation), regional conflicts (Middle East, Western Balkans, Afghanistan), Russia (in view of the bilateral summits that the Europeans, then the Americans will have in the coming weeks with Mr. Putin and his team), economic and trade and development issues, including the project for a Positive Agenda (see EUROPE of 25 and 27 April, as well as a Look Behind the News in that issue), disputes and sustainable development. These talks will be preceded by a preparatory meeting between the Senior Level Group and representatives of the transatlantic consumer dialogue and businessmen. The latter will then have short talks with the political leaders.
The partners are now bent on securing concrete results from their Summits. In the light of this, they will examine a few aspects of what is still but a project "for favourable trade". Among the dozen or so areas where the Europeans would like to move ahead most, discussions will focus on financial services (liberalisation of access to stock markets), extension of regulatory co-operation, convergence of standards and controls on organic farming, the definition and development of prototypes of electronic systems of customs procedures. "We shall try to define twelve-month objectives to demonstrate that the transatlantic agenda can evolve in a positive manner", said Rodderick Abott, Deputy Director General for Trade and former Union Ambassador in Geneva.
One-to-one Lamy Zoellick before Summit
On the eve of the Summit, the Commissioner for Trade, Pascal Lamy will have a "one-to-one" with his American counterpart, Robert Zoellick, devoted to "more wide-ranging trade issues" (China, regional co-operation, Africa, etc.) said Mr. Abbott. For the remainder, "we shall try to remain constructive whatever happens", he said, citing some of the issues that anger: the American export tax relief system (the WTO will rule on 18 June on the amount of sanctions the EU has the right to inflict on American trade, between 4.4043 billion in damage that it is calling for and the 1 billion put forward by Washington), hormones (talks on the commercial compensation that the EU wants to grant the United states for it to lift its sanctions have still not ended), the American embargo of Spanish clementines (contamination by parasites of certain deliveries, including deliveries marked "made in California", observed in "supermarkets" remains to be demonstrated), and steel. This conflict is currently leading to "a heated exchanges of views" rather than an escalation, he said, playing down the threat of counter-measures proffered by an anonymous American source, in the hypothesis of European sanctions, and remaining silent on the difficulties of the EU in maintaining a united front that it had at the beginning of the affair. ("We are sceptical over the idea of retaliation measures against the United States", declared the Swedish Ambassador to Brussels. "Other countries share our concerns, but we are the most sceptical", he added, refraining from explicitly referring to Germany and the United Kingdom).