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Roundup: US President Departs for Six-Day Trip to Europe
US President George W. Bush departed Monday evening for Spain, his first trip to Europe as president, which also includes stops in Belgium, Sweden, Poland and Slovenia.
During his six-day trip to Europe, Bush will attend a gathering of NATO leaders on Wednesday in Brussels, take part in a US- European Union summit on Thursday in Gothenburg, Sweden, and meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana.
The U.S. president began his first European trip at a time of great U.S. and European friction, said Ivo Daalder, a senior fellow of Foreign Policy Studies of Brookings Institution in Washington.
Bush may have trouble convincing skeptical European leaders to accept the positions adopted by his new Republican administration on missile defense, climate change and trade.
There is widespread unease in Europe about the direction of American policy, which came after the Kyoto fiasco in which the administration declared dead a multilateral convention to which it was a party, or at least a signatory.
The European unease also came after a U.S. push for missile defenses and strategic affairs, and after the much more confrontational posture this new administration took with regard to China and even, to a major extent, with regard to Russia.
Europe met the Bush administration with a considerable degree of unease, and the result has been a degree of friction, Daalder said. "Just as one wag once put it, when America has a political honeymoon, Europe has a nightmare."
"The U.S.-European relationship remains very important for Europe and for the United States. Therefore, even if there is comity and all kinds of good talk and good smiles this week, the real problems in the relationship will remain," Daalder said.
"The Europeans don't depend on the United States to the degree that they used to. They are building their unity. And they have more options," said Philip Gordon, former director for European Affairs of the White House National Security Council and a senior fellow of Brookings.
"I think that as President Bush arrives in Europe, facing the sort of skepticism that he does will be one of the things on his mind," Gordon said.
"As he treats each of these issues, does he do so in a way that says, 'Here is what we think; you guys follow,' or does he really listen and accept the input of the European allies?" Gordon asked.
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