Washington, 19/10/2005 (Agence Europe) - After a meeting with Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, on Tuesday, the President of the United States, George W. Bush, told reporters: 'I told Jose that it's very important for the people in Europe to know that America values our relationship, wants the EU to succeed, wants to work in collaboration to achieve some big objectives. One is to lay the foundation for peace by spreading democracy and freedom… Secondly is to help enhance the prosperity of our respective counties, as well as the world, through promoting free and fair trade. We talked about what it requires to get the Doha Round moving forward. We had a good, frank discussion on that, and there's no question we share the same objective.' Jose Manuel Barroso said: 'As President Bush said, this relation is very important, most of all because we share exactly the same values of freedom, democracy and human rights, and we complement each other in pushing forward this agenda, but also in economic terms…. We very much in the European Union are looking forward for a success of those (WTO, Ed.) talks. We want it to have ambitious and balanced result, on agriculture, but not only agriculture. I want to emphasise this point - service policy is very important, so that our citizens can really see the benefits of globalisation.'
In a speech on 'The EU and the US: a declaration of interdependence' at the School of Advanced International Studies in Washington on 18 October, Jose Manuel Barroso said 'if the EU didn't exist, we would have to invent it. But the EU does exist. So let me outline how we are renewing it. First of all, we have refused to allow the current difficulties over the Constitution, regrettable as they are, to become an excuse for paralysis. The world will not stop while Europe engages in a bout of introspection. And there are pressing challenges to tackle in the meantime. Chief among these is the urgent need to boost growth and jobs.' 'The EU has ... played a key role in monitoring the ongoing Aceh peace process.' Stressing the importance of EU-US cooperation on Iran, China and the Middle East (and elsewhere), Barroso said 'the cornerstone of the international community's multilateral architecture is the UN,' although the UN Summit in September 'can best be described, as I said at the time, as a 'mitigated success'. The establishment of the Peacebuilding Commission was evidently a good outcome, and the progress made on development was more or less satisfactory… Joint leadership from the EU and the US could make all the difference.'