Brussels, 09/04/2003 (Agence Europe) - The respective Commissioners for external relations and trade, Chris Patten and Pascal Lamy have made an appeal "to put the megaphones away". This "trans-Atlantic appeal" was made on Wednesday in the pages of the Herald Tribune, where they admit that, "the last few weeks have been miserable for those of use who believe in European unity, in a strong trans-Atlantic partnership and in the authoritative role for the United Nations". The two Commissioners responsible for external affairs, call on the EU and USA to recognise, "how much the United States and Europe need one another" and how much they have in common (after all, as they point out, "the United States was born of Europe's rib"), advising them to "minimise their differences and maximise their joint influence for good". This, they explain, involves: redoubling efforts in the struggle against terrorism throughout the whole world (they mention trans-Atlantic cooperation in the security of container traffic, while hoping that such initiatives do not hamper international trade); working more for developing successful cooperation in the Balkans; continuing to closely cooperate in the service of a single strategy in Afghanistan (where the EU "has a bigger military presence than the USA and is the bigger donor"); relaunch the Israel-Palestine peace process together, because "most people in the region - rightly or wrongly - believe that the United States represents the interests of Israel" and the Americans cannot therefore play the role of "honest broker"; make genuine progress in the economic and trade area before the EU/USA summit on 25 June in Washington.
The two Commissioners say they wrote the article, "as citizens of two countries, France and Britain, that find their own relations strained by current events. Our simple appeal is that people on all sides of the debate over Iraq put away their megaphones, acknowledge how much unites us across the Atlantic and recognise our shared responsibility to provide international leadership".