Thanks to this nice bank of computers at the Press Center of the Brussels Conrad Hotel, I am, for the first time in my life, live blogging as a "journalist." The 2009 edition of the Brussels Forum, put on by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMFUS), is under way.
Don't stay tuned - I can't imagine that I'll be able to type and listen at the same time. And I certainly don't want to Twitter my time away. Right now BBC World's Nik Gowing is conducting the first event of the Forum, taping next weekend's (Saturday March 28) episode of The World Debate. The topic: "How Relevant is Europe To The US Under Obama?" It's a relevant topic in its own right, and one that haunts Europeans, who read much into President Obama's seeming downplaying of Gordon Brown's recent visit, or that his first phone call as President was to Mahmoud Abbas and not, say, to Nicolas Sarkozy (poor Sarko is apparently chafing from Obama's letter to his predecessor, Jacques Chirac).
It will be worthwhile watching, this debate of talking heads. "Mars" (in the person of neocon Robert Kagan, Iraq war monger now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and "Venus" (pretty much everyone else, starting with Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Minister) battle over the question of fundamental differences (Kagan) or shared values (everyone else) between Europe and the United States. UK minister Lord Marc Malloch Brown rounded out the European side.
Dr. Anne-Marie Slaughter, Director of Policy Planning at the State Department, is one of the
glass-half-full majority. Turning Henry Kissinger's dictum about Europe - "who do I call?" - on its head, she said that she can mange with three - not 27 - numbers: those of the EU troika.
One of the best lines was from Carl Bildt, who knows that to do business in Washington, Europeans certainly need more than the White House or the State Department's number. Illustrative of the Potomac-on-the-North-Sea representation here at the Forum is the presence of a strong US Congressional delegation, including Senators John McCain, Ted Kaufman, Mel Martinez, James Risch, Jeanne Shaheen, and George Voinovich; on the House side, Representatives Alcee Hastings, Darrel Issa, Ron Kind, Ellen Tauscher, and Michael Turner, with staffers from both chambers in tow. Senators Robert Casey and Bob Bennet, co-chairmen of the Codel, also addressed the opening session.
In the audience, some interesting faces, including Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, staying on-message about Russian intervention in his country.
Probably the most substantive presentation was that of European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, who tried to erase the false dichotomy between stimulation and regulation, the roughly respective American and European positions on the world financial/economic crisis. Both are essential, said Barroso, who defended European efforts at injecting sufficient liquidity as equal or greater than those of the US. Barroso reminded the audience that the European safety net is not only more extensive than that of the US (more generous unemployment benefits; universal health care, etc.), but also lasts longer (unlimited in some European countries vs. 9 months in the US).
All in all, an interesting beginning for the Brussels Forum.