As a member of Democrats Abroad Belgium, I was asked to write an assessment of what the Obama Administration's early moves meant for Europe. The following appeared today in "New Europe," a Brussels-based weekly.
If it already seems slightly dated, that's because it was based on Obama's first Day - as opposed to his first Week (happy anniversary!) - in the White House.
President Barack Obama, 21 January 2009
Though he was referring to new ethics rules for White House personnel on his first full day in office, President Obama’s pragmatically principled outlook will be welcome relief to Europeans eager for a fresh breeze from the west. Swiss Foreign Minister Micheline Calmy-Rey, when she said Obama "speaks like we do,” was especially referring to his commitment to “dialogue, human rights and climate change.”
Europeans should be gratified by his first steps toward fulfilling his promise to close the Guantanamo prison facility: freezing the flawed military tribunal process and returning a respected civil-military prosecutor, fired by former President Bush, back to the camp. Whether Obama’s early moves toward closing Guantanamo will encourage European countries to help “place” the remaining detainees remains to be seen.
But as the German Marshall Fund’s John Glenn and Kristin Lord of the Brookings Institution put it recently in Politico (“Obama to Europe: Ich bin ein listener”), “Obama’s great promise is that he has the potential to make collaboration with the United States not just politically possible but politically desirable.”
In these pages (19 January, Andy Dabilis, “The EU wants to know: who will Obama call?”), top European leaders were imagined lining up to be the first to receive a phone call from the new leader. Though they may be disappointed not to have been first, they should be pleasantly surprised that it was not another rival European, nor even a leader of a “country” who was the first so honored. Instead, Obama phoned Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestinian Authority.
President Obama also phoned other Middle Eastern leaders on Day One. There have been indications that Obama is to make a major speech during his first 100 days in an Islamic capital (Morocco is actively lobbying to be the venue). This should settle questions about where the foreign policy priorities of the new administration lie.
But Europe need not worry. Obama famously said “America has no better partner than Europe” last year in Berlin, the cornerstone of his foreign trip during the campaign. A number of upcoming fora will provide early opportunities for European leaders to mix with Obama Administration principals. Next week at Davos, National Economic Council director Lawrence Summers and National Security Adviser-designate James Jones will underline the economic and national security importance of the World Economic Forum agenda.
Before the double-bill in early April of the G-20 in London followed by NATO’s 60th Anniversary summit in Strasbourg and Kehl, President Obama will have ample opportunity to speak one-on-one with world and European leaders. In the meantime, his just-confirmed Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will lose no time on the preparations for these important events.
Those leaders who longed for an Obama appearance at the November 2008 Washington G-20 will get their chance to deliberate with him on economic priorities, and his presence at the April NATO Summit will undoubtedly bolster President Nicolas Sarkozy’s prestige as host, not to speak of helping to deflect expected internal criticism for his announced plan to fully re-integrate France into the Atlantic Alliance.
The G-20 will likely see a greater meeting of the minds between a Keynesian Obama Administration and European leaders than that shown by the reluctant host last November. But it is not certain that Obama will find more enthusiasm at the NATO Summit for the Alliance’s only hot war, Afghanistan. As Fabrice Pothier, Director of Carnegie Europe said last December in New Europe, leaders from NATO’s European member states are good at “downplaying the seriousness of the Afghanistan mission at home while at the same time agreeing with international partners on the importance of prevailing there.”
Glenn and Lord, cited earlier, remind us that European publics’ “concern is not really about whether to help stabilize Afghanistan but about using force to achieve that goal,” and support a “wide range of non-combat missions.” Stay tuned for a transatlantic convergence, perhaps elucidated in Davos by (retired 4-star general) James Jones, on a shift in Afghanistan to a “smart power” approach of robust diplomacy.
That’s a change that Americans and Europeans can believe in.
My apologies to American audiences who thought they'd heard the last of the last line.