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LJUBLJANA: US President George W. Bush Monday kicks
off his week-long visit to major European capitals. But not much is
expected from this farewell trip as European leaders are already
looking at his successor for future transatlantic ties.
Bush steps down on Jan. 20, 2009.
The president starts his visit in
Slovenia, where he will attend a summit of the United States and the
European Union (EU). Then he travels to Berlin, Rome, Paris and
London, the most important capitals in Europe.
Bush is expected to consolidate
transatlantic relations, building on recent improvements partly as a
result of the changes of guard in major European capitals. Europe-US
relations had been marred by divisions over the US-led Iraq War in
2003.
Topics are extensive given close
transatlantic relations both in political and economic terms.
Bush is expected to call for more
help from Europeans on Iraq and Afghanistan as well as on
Washington’s attempts to halt Iran’s nuclear program.
He is also expected to give
Europe a pat on the back on climate change, where the EU has been a
world leader while the Bush administration has dragged its heels.
Another important issue on
Bush’s agenda is the Middle East.
Bush had vowed to help forge a
peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians for the birth of a
Palestinian state by the time he leaves office. But as the clock
ticks on his time in the White House, little progress has been made.
Like his predecessor, Bill Clinton, his hopes for a major
breakthrough in the Middle East as his legacy might well come to
nowhere.
No breakthroughs are expected in
other issues either.
On the issue of Iran’s nuclear
program, EU foreign and security policy chief Javier Solana travels
to Tehran later this week to present a new proposal from Britain,
China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States. But the
proposal is not expected to produce immediate results as Iran and
the international community are still at loggerheads over the key
issue of uranium enrichment.
Washington’s push for more
European soldiers and equipment for Afghanistan had met pretty
strong resistance from West European member states of the EU.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy
gave Bush a much-needed gift by pledging to send about 700
additional troops to Afghanistan at a NATO summit in April. The
pledge averted a crisis when Canada threatened to withdraw its
combat troops from Afghanistan in 2009.
With an Afghan donors’
conference in Paris on Thursday, Bush will again push EU countries
for more aid to the war-torn country.
With the election of Silvio
Berlusconi as Italy’s new prime minister, Bush may get new pledges
from him on Afghanistan and Iraq. Berlusconi, together with then
British Prime Minister Tony Blair and then Spanish Prime Minister
Jose Maria Aznar, was a staunch ally of Bush on the Iraq War.
In his talks with German
Chancellor Angela Merkel, who is less confrontational than her
predecessor, Gerard Schroeder, Bush is expected to tackle the issue
of trade barriers between the United States and EU.
In 2007, EU-US trade in goods
accounted for one third of the world total and bilateral trade in
services was over 40 percent of the world total.
High oil and food prices could
become a hot issue at the EU-US summit. Developing countries have
been asking the EU and United States to slash farm subsidies. The
attitude toward this issue at the summit will be watched closely.
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