14 - 20 June 2001
Issue No.538
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 14 - 20 June 2001 Issue No.538 |
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Cowboy Attila storms Europe
On his maiden tour of Europe, US President George W Bush faces stiff opposition to his defence and environmental policies, writes Gamal Nkrumah
United States President George W Bush is visiting Europe -- ostensibly America's best friend -- for the first time in an official capacity. But already that friendship seems to be growing chilly. Just a few months into his presidency, Bush has a host of fences to mend with his old-world allies. The post-Cold War world order is founded on the special relationship between the US and the European Union. But suddenly points of difference seem to outnumber points of agreement. Trade, defence and the environment: all seem to be causing noisy quarrels. But noisy as they are, it would be wrong to think the best of friends are suddenly set to become the worst of foes. Underneath the clamour, there's plenty of warmth in the relationship yet.
Washington's back-tracking on global warming outraged international public opinion. The consensus in Europe is that Bush is making heavy weather of the issue. The more environment- friendly Europeans are angered by Bush's widely publicised rejection of the 1997 Kyoto agreement on greenhouse emissions. Bush publicly stated that he favours the well-being of the US economy over an accord with Europe on global warming.
To be sure, talk of a crisis in the US-European relationship is overdone. The political alliance that binds the two giants remains largely solid for the most part; the cracks in the alliance do not threaten the overall structure. Grave European misgivings about US trade policies and Bush's missile defence programme are constant causes of friction. Atmospheric pollution is just another bone of contention between the Western allies.
Anti-Bush protesters in the Spanish capital Madrid, where Bush kick-started his five- nation European tour, waved placards reading "Cowboy Attila". True to character, Bush delivered his knock-out punch by referring to his host, Prime Minister Jose-Maria Aznar, as Anzar.
After Spain, Bush is scheduled to visit the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) headquarters in Brussels. Near the end of his tour, the American president will meet his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, a vociferous critic of Bush's controversial new missile defence system, in Slovenia. By proposing to abandon the 1972 anti-ballistic treaty signed by the US and the former Soviet Union, Bush has raised alarm bells in Moscow. Russia is trying to drive a wedge between Washington and its European allies over the issue.
Bush will also attend the very first US- EU summit, scheduled to be held in Sweden today, to iron out trade and other disputes. Temperatures rose last week in the ongoing US-EU row over which side spends more to subsidise its civil aircraft industry, specifically the Pentagon's backing of air cargo companies that purchase Boeing jumbo jets.
With the notable exception of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Spain's Aznar, the major European nations have opted for socialist governments. But the European socialist parties in power do not necessarily have an anti- US agenda. When German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder paid a respectful visit to Washington in March this year, he described the relationship between Europe's economic powerhouse and the world's superpower as "close and friendly." And Britain's Labour Party has cemented ties with Washington, earning London the dubious accolade of Washington's "poodle".
There are other, more mundane bread-and-butter issues. The US and the EU are embroiled in a long-standing dispute over an EU ban on imports of US hormone-treated beef. In retaliation, Washington threatens to ban imports of EU steel. The ripple effects of these trade wars on the world's poorest countries are tangible enough, but the poor countries of Africa are far more concerned about expanding market access in both the US and the EU.
World poverty and the widening income gap have emerged as the most serious threat to international peace and security. The US and the EU, representing one-tenth of the world's population, currently account for two-fifths of global economic output. The economic divide between the world's rich and poor has become unacceptable. According to World Bank figures, the average income in the richest 20 countries is 37 times the average in the poorest -- a gap that has doubled in the past 40 years. Meanwhile, infant mortality in African countries south of the Sahara is 15 times that of Western nations. In the West fewer than one child in 100 fails to reach its fifth birthday, while as many as a fifth of African children do not. The US and Europe have a moral responsibility to redress this gross imbalance.
The poor countries of the world want to see more advanced countries take decisive action on these vital issues. They call on Washington and Brussels to open up their markets to imports from their southern neighbours. But tariffs that the EU imposes on meat products reach an astounding 826 per cent. Indeed, tariffs levied by Western countries on agricultural products from poor countries are five times those of manufactured goods. The tariffs and subsidies imposed by member states of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which groups the world's developed countries, cost poor countries some $20 billion annually. Poor countries, under pressure to liberalise their trade regimes, are opening their markets and privatising their key industries, but these efforts are not reciprocated.
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