Brussels, 17/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday during a meeting with a group of journalists in Brussels, the EU High Representative for CFSP welcomed the greater warmth in the Trans-Atlantic partnership, signified by the visit of President George W. Bush to Brussels next week and then subsequent visit to Berlin and Bratislava. Javier Solana welcomed the change in the USA's attitude and the special care to be constructive by Condoleezza Rice, a special care to be warm”. He explained that they would now need to use the time properly and move forward. He repeated that at the meeting of the 25 Heads of the European Union and the US president, this would involve speaking less about ourselves and more between ourselves. Speak about what? Iraq, the fight against terrorism, the fight against proliferation but also the economy, climate change and the Kyoto Protocol, which has just come into force without the participation of the USA. The EU High Representative for CFSP did not forget about the other big players: China, India, Brazil and South Africa because it is always necessary tot remember that the “world is bigger than Washington and Brussels”.
Asked about the Munich speech in which Gerhard Schröder said that NATO could no longer be the only basis for Trans-Atlantic dialogue, Javier Solana replied that it was “obvious” that this dialogue was also taken up by the European Union and that this was exactly what the US president implicitly recognised by visiting the two organisations on the same day (EUROPE 15 February p 6). The High Representative also noted that the US president in his State of the Union speech, and more recently with Ms Rice during her visit to Paris was careful to mention the European Union instead of using the vaguer term of Europe.
In a reply to a question on the lifting of the arms embargo on China, Solana pointed out that this embargo was anachronistic insofar as we are witnessing a new generation of Chinese political leaders and a development in relations with China. While pointing out that European level rules would continue to apply to these exports, Mr Solana underlined that countries such as Israel and even Australia already exported weapons to China.