Posted on 07/14/2010 8:40:34 PM PDT by RobinMasters
Europe’s disappointment with Barack Obama’s presidency is laid bare today as the EU’s most senior figure calls for a dramatic effort to revive transatlantic relations.
The President of the European Commission told The Times that the new era at the White House was in danger of becoming a “missed opportunity” for Europe.
José Manuel Barroso said that the EU-US relationship was “not living up to its potential” and was being marred by fundamental disagreements on how to deal with the economic crisis, climate change and trade reform.
The feelings of a deepening rift are mutual. Senior US figures said last night that Mr Obama could never live up to Europe’s sky-high expectations.
Mr Barroso revealed his frustrations with Washington during a wideranging interview with The Times in which he also admitted that the euro had acted like a “sleeping pill”, luring some countries to the edge of economic disaster with an “illusion of prosperity”.
It has been a fractious few months for EU-US relations, culminating in a fundamental clash of ideas at the G20 summit between Europe’s austerity strategy for ending the economic crisis and Mr Obama’s call to maintain fiscal stimulus.
Speaking days before David Cameron visits the White House, Mr Barroso said: “The transatlantic relationship is not living up to its potential. I think we should do much more together. We have conditions like we have never had before and it would be a pity if we missed the opportunity.”
The US defended itself forcefully against claims that it had neglected Europe. “Expectations were probably so high that they could not have been met when you looked at the European response to the election,” a senior official in the Administration told The Times.
The view from Washington is that communication with Europe on a range of crucial issues is difficult because the EU still lacks “a clear foreign policy apparatus”.
Richard Haass, head of the Council on Foreign Relations, an influential think-tank in Washington, criticised Brussels for the appointments of Herman Van Rompuy as President of the European Council and Baroness Ashton of Upholland as High Representative for Foreign Affairs.
“Europe created these posts to speak for the collective as a whole. But from the perspective of many Americans, rather than building up someone of the stature of [the former Nato Secretary-General] Javier Solana, it looks as though Europe has retreated,” he said.
Downing Street said that the relationship between Europe and America had always been built on dialogue and co-operation. “If Mr Barroso thinks that we should see more of that, we’d agree.”
A senior aide to President Sarkozy of France said: “Obama does not come from the same tradition as his predecessors. He is interested in Asia and Russia, not Europe. There is no sense of a privileged relationship. They seem to take us for granted sometimes.”
A German government official said: “If our austerity cuts lead to street demos, the protesters will be shouting out phrases they heard from Obama. How do you think that makes us feel?”
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the former Foreign Secretary, tried to put the cooling of ties into an historical perspective. “We won the Cold War, so of course the problems of Europe cannot be as high a priority as in the past. But that’s a consequence of success, not failure,” he said.
Asked how he planned to reach out to Mr Obama — who visited Europe six times in his first year in office but was said by US analysts to have nothing to show for it — Mr Barroso said: “Of course it is a question of how the Americans are going to reach to us as well because the relationship should be perceived as mutual.”
Analysts said that the EU was naive to expect a sea change in US foreign policy just because George Bush had been replaced in the White House.
Hugo Brady, of the Centre for European Reform, said: “Obama was always overblown as a symbol because US foreign policy interests tend not to change. The US does not understand the need for everyone to be around the table at the EU, which they find as frustrating as a mini-UN where people want to talk about the good things they have done.”
Hmmmm...! He put soooooo much store in doing things more in the Euro way, yet ho, ho, ho...!
Look who doesn’t like us...! And they are RIGHT not to.
Sooooooo, Obama beckons in a new age of Ugly American...!
This is rich!
Before we were rich and **sort of** maligned, now we’re poor and brusquely being shown the door.
He’s realllly helping us..!
A pox on both their ideologies.
Leni
“The feelings of a deepening rift are mutual. Senior US figures said last night that Mr Obama could never live up to Europe’s sky-high expectations.”
Big Ears couldn’t live up to the EU’s lowest expectations!
Maybe some of these hollywood clowns will make some video expressing obamar love for the Europeans.
ping
“Europe created these posts to speak for the collective as a whole. But from the perspective of many Americans, rather than building up someone of the stature of [the former Nato Secretary-General] Javier Solana, it looks as though Europe has retreated,” he said.
I despise and loathe the American ruling socialists the most.
They are here. They are a rock in my shoe.
Agree on a pox on both. Happily.
How can this be?
The masses chanted his name at a rally in Germany!
Shouldn’t that have taken care of it?
Just a little thing called staged public relations stunt.
They were beside themselves when Obama got elected. How is that “hope and change” working out for ya, Europe?
Whenever the Europeans criticize Obama, Obama needs to have his lackeys play the race card against Europe. 'What, you want Obama to work for you just because he's black?!?! You want him to call you 'masta' too? You racists!!!'
Europe just “broke up” with Obama.
The US is next to dump his ass.
They already gave him his Nobel Prize. They don’t expect him to earn it after the fact, do they? (He certainly didn’t earn before the fact.)
I thought he was “Mr. division fixer”. Maybe that tingle running up Crissy Matthews leg was an indicator of a stroke after all.
You really could pick a random person off of the street, swear them in as President and they would have more common sense and do less damage than Barry. He just isn’t up to the task. He spent much of his campaign attacking Bush, yet Barry has alienated our allies more than Bush ever did. I don’t know why he thinks appointing Hillary Clinton to deal with foreign affairs is a good idea when it was obvious that she would alienate and polarize foreign leaders in much the same way as she does most of the U.S. citizenry.
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