What Kind of Europe ...

Sunday, Feb. 20, 2005 By JAMES GRAFF
WELCOME BACK: Bush is in Europe this week to bolster relations with the E.U.
PABLO MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS/AP
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Good things happen when soft and hard power — carrot and stick — are used in tandem. That's what some 50 foreign-policy experts from both sides of the Atlantic proposed last week. They fashioned a "compact" of compromises on the most recalcitrant issues dividing the U.S. and the E.U., starting with Iraq. As part of a grand barter, the Europeans would step up training, increase spending on reconstruction from $300 million to $1 billion for 2005, and write off half the country's debt; in exchange, the U.S. would give Europe a role in determining Iraq's economic and political future. Artful compromises were proposed for everything from the International Criminal Court to the China arms embargo to negotiations with Iran. Yet the American signatories to the compact, many of whom were advisers to Democrats Bill Clinton or John Kerry, say the White House isn't interested. "Bush is really working on the Middle East, but otherwise he's not addressing the central policy differences with Europe," says Philip Gordon of the Brookings Institution, who coordinated the initiative. "The core belief of this Administration is, 'What we could get from the Europeans is so minor that it's not worth it to compromise.'"

IRAN That may not be true of Iran, where the transatlantic divide is perhaps less deep than it seems. On this issue, Gordon's policy mavens suggested the U.S. should openly support the European negotiations with Tehran — if the Europeans commit to imposing penalties if Iran doesn't end its efforts to complete the nuclear fuel cycle. There's room for collaboration here since Washington is not gearing up for war. "I think the Germans are persuaded that the U.S. is not going to bomb Iran," says Elizabeth Pond, editor of IP, an English-language quarterly published by the German Council on Foreign Relations. "It's not like before the Iraq war, when there was a plan to go to war and Washington was marching toward it." That allows for a coordinated diplomatic effort, where a good cop–bad cop routine could get results.

THE BALKANS The former Yugoslavia is one place where E.U. power is starting to come into its own. It took American resolve to rout the Serbs in Bosnia in 1995, and American planes to bomb them out of Kosovo in 1999, but NATO's formerly 60,000-strong security force in Bosnia is long gone. In its place is a peacekeeping operation of 7,000 European troops under E.U. control. "The Balkans are divided into two groups: those who will become E.U. members soon and those who won't," says Gerald Knaus, head of the European Stability Initiative, a Berlin think tank. The prospect of membership "gives a big boost to reform. For Albania, Bosnia and Serbia, the incentive is much weaker as long as membership remains vague."

Bush clearly wants to make a fresh start with the E.U., and many Europeans hope this visit sets a new tone. But the second Bush Administration "hasn't had its first crisis yet," observes a senior British official. The atmosphere Bush establishes this week will help determine how both sides react when it does.