US-Europe relations in transition

`Reality shows there are good reasons to be optimistic about US-European relations." So says the EU's ambassador to Washington, Mr Hugo Paeman. He cites the profound interdependence economically and politically of the two continental regions, whether measured by trade, investment or mutually shared values and security interests. As for recent recurrent conflicts and tensions over trade issues, he says there is more likelihood of accidents on a busy road, while acknowledging the need for improved management. He is impressed by how well transatlantic relations have stood up during the Kosovo crisis, despite emerging differences over its endgame.

Other senior figures in Washington agree that basically the transatlantic relationship is in relatively good shape. It is a colossal marketplace, the primary route of globalising capital investment, mergers and trade. Since these are central to Ireland's current prosperity, it is important to gauge accurately what drives the accumulating tensions over bananas, beef hormones, genetically-modified food or sound-proofed air engines. Is it all evidence of a deteriorating relationship with potential political consequences - or actual ones expressed through the NATO bombing of Serbia? Or are they little to do with high politics, boring, complex and best confined to bureaucratic wrangling? A senior State Department official with responsibility in this area denies there is a crisis in transatlantic relations. They are rather growing pains associated with "the development of a more equal relationship" after the end of the Cold War.

Regulation therefore has more of an impact than 20 years ago precisely because the relationship is so close - "they are us, we are them". But US-EU relations are both competitive and co-operative, he says. From both points of view dialogue needs to be intensified and developed into a lasting partnership.

The word partnership recurs on the US side. It may well be in both US and European interests. But that prompts two further questions: what are the terms of this partnership? And does it conceal a US desire to maintain and modernise its own competitive advantage based on economic hegemony, military superpowerdom and cultural outreach, rather than to achieve genuine equality?

The relationship is, after all, asymmetrical both politically and institutionally. The EU cannot match the US federal system for political leadership and orchestration of interests.

The one is a fully developed federal system, the other a yet-to-be-defined hybrid system embedding national and supra-national elements together in what may turn out to be a new model of internationalised governance.

The EU will not be able to match the US comprehensively; but it can in specific domains such as trade. As its competences and institutional architecture are developed - the euro recently and foreign policy, security and defence arrangements over coming years - it comes up against what Mr Paeman considers to be a characteristically two-sided cycle of US private and official responses to further steps in European integration: theoretically in favour; in practice either against, deeply sceptical, or disbelieving the capacity to act; once a new institution is put in place it is accepted and worked with as a fact and an opportunity. The euro is the perfect example.

It is uncannily reminiscent of Jean Monnet's advice about how the Europeans should negotiate integration with the British: first establish your facts and then rely on their celebrated pragmatism to recognise them. That is precisely what Mr Paeman believes must be done in the sphere of defence: if the EU does it the US will respect the decision - and if not, it won't. He is astonished how rapidly the EU discussion on security and defence co-operation is developing in advance of a policy statement at the EU summit in Cologne early next month.

AT issue is the so-called European Security and Defence Identity, which would allow the EU to draw on NATO military assets when it wants to mount humanitarian, peacekeeping or peacemaking tasks. The precise terms by which this would be done have yet to be agreed with the US, which funds most of the assets and complains about the Europeans not sharing the burden equitably. Developing European capabilities will mean more defence expenditure. The St Malo agreement between France and Britain last December took the US by surprise and is seen as psychologically very important for Britain's relations with France and a token of Mr Blair's desire to be at the centre of Europe, even if not in the euro. A Britain isolated in Europe would be less effective an ally of Washington's.

The Kosovo crisis has precipitated and accelerated this negotiation. It promises to enliven the US-EU summit later next month, certainly compared to the last one, after which President Clinton demanded of his aides never again to have him sit through a 20-minute harangue on bananas.

The US wants to see a transatlantic partnership as a base for acting in the global arena - that is seen as added value.

But there is inherent tension between its tendency as a superpower to take the lead itself and the growing realisation that it needs partners to do so effectively. There is always the temptation to escape, as a senior European diplomat put it. Another compared the Kosovo operation to a piece of punitive 19th-century gunboat diplomacy. Clearly there is neither the stomach nor the support in Washington for the use of ground troops.

Everything is calibrated by Mr Clinton to avoid US military casualties. This is taken by observers to be concrete evidence of his loss of authority after the Lewinsky affair. A compromise deal on Kosovo is in the making which will probably fall well short of the Clinton-Blair rhetoric and could isolate them. It is surprising how often one is told in Washington that were the NATO bombing to fail that would be the end of the alliance.

United Nations endorsement is another source of transatlantic tension. The logic of emerging European positions is to rely much more centrally on UN approval for military actions than the US would prefer. Kosovo will be a test case for the future.

The transition to greater equality in transatlantic relations is one of the most important international political trends. It is very much an open agenda. Political and security issues have come to the fore. It will be up to EU member-states, Ireland included, to identify their priorities as clearly as possible during this period, the better to influence the direction of change.