The Economist
Charlemagne
The Obama tonic
The American president’s message of hope could be useful in Europe
“YES, we can. Is feidir linn.” Barack Obama’s mantra translates easily to Gaelic, and it had the same electrifying effect in Dublin this week as it did in the United States when he was elected. O’Bama for the day, having discovered a droplet of Irish blood in his global ancestry, the president and his message of hope are the tonic that Ireland, and much of Europe, badly needs.
If a black man can become president in America then, yes, Ireland can surely recover from its crash. Later in London, where he was greeted with the best of British pomp, a regal Mr Obama confirmed that yes, even a reduced Britain can be a really, really special friend to America. And yes, David Cameron can win the war in Libya. His faith that time is running out for Muammar Qaddafi will also sustain President Nicolas Sarkozy of France who, still more than the British prime minister, has made the Libya campaign his own. And by hosting Mr Obama along with the other G8 leaders, Mr Sarkozy wants to show that, yes, he can defy the polls to win re-election next year. Finally, in Warsaw, Mr Obama was due to tell Poland that, yes, it can punch above its weight.
Mr Obama’s trip to Europe was not unconnected with his own quest for re-election next year, if only by stirring the ancestral sensibilities of Americans of Irish and Polish descent. But there was serious foreign-policy business to be conducted as well. Mr Obama realises, like others before him, that the old allies are still the more reliable friends.
One of his tasks is to overcome Europeans’ sense of being treated with disdain. Maybe it is the fate of junior partners to fret about being jilted. But remember how Mr Obama sent back the bust of Churchill that Tony Blair had given George Bush? Or the time he declined dinner with the Sarkozys to have a night out in Paris with his wife? Or his rejection of a tedious US-EU summit in Madrid? Or his wrong-footing of the Poles by abruptly changing America’s missile-defence plans? Or his turning down an invitation to attend the 20th anniversary celebration of the fall of the Berlin Wall? As president, Mr Obama has seemed very distant from John Kennedy’s “Ich bin ein Berliner”. At least this week he laid claim to a bit of the Kennedys’ Irishness.
In truth, Mr Obama was bound to get a good reception. For all the snubs, real and perceived, he remains popular in Europe (more so than in America). He sounds more “European” than recent American presidents; his latest declaration that settling the question of Palestine must take the pre-1967 borders (with land swaps) as a starting point for talks was hailed by one senior Eurocrat as evidence that “America has moved closer to Europe.”
Mr Obama’s tour comes when the two sides of the Atlantic are contending with the effects of the most acute economic crisis in eight decades. Both halves of the “West” are losing dominance, but the decline feels sharper in Europe. If Europeans once thought they could sacrifice some growth for the sake of more equality than America, many now fear they are being left behind, not just by America, but by new, rising powers. Fragmented into small and medium-sized states, many Europeans feel more exposed to global competition. But their effort to band together in the European Union is under strain. The crisis has exposed the weaknesses of the euro, immigration is challenging the system of open borders and rising Euroscepticism is questioning the very justification for the union. The war in Libya shows how badly even the most martial European states need America’s help.
“At times I feel like a therapist,” says one American official. “I keep having to tell Europeans that things are not so bad.” Indeed, the European ideal sometimes seems more alive in parts of Washington than in European capitals. The Obama administration has repeatedly prodded Europeans to shore up the euro. Hillary Clinton, the American secretary of state, is the biggest believer in the EU’s new but much-criticised diplomatic service.
The economic threat should be spurring America and Europeans to closer co-operation. At the height of the crisis they and others acted to stimulate their economies and save their banks. But now each country must cope with the resulting debts largely on its own (though those near collapse have been rescued).
Western ideals live on
Europeans need not lose heart. They have the economic resources to deal with the sovereign-debt crisis, if they can overcome the political obstacles to harnessing them. They need only look to Nordic states to see that it is still possible to combine strong growth with a high degree of social protection.
There is another reason to hope: look across the Mediterranean at how Arabs are demanding democratic freedoms. Plainly, aspects of the Western model are still attractive. America and European countries have been working for more than two decades to help the transition to democracy in the ex-communist states in eastern Europe. They should now seek to do the same in the Arab world in the coming decades, though it will be much harder. Indeed, given their proximity, and their direct interest in a stable Mediterranean, Europeans should take the lead.
The EU’s oft-derided “soft power” could yet prove useful; a recent Gallup poll found that the EU is more popular (or, at least, less unpopular) among Arabs than America or major European states. The European Commission this week unveiled its plan for a “new and ambitious neighbourhood policy”. It proposes conditional incentives to encourage democracy, including billions in grants and loans, “deep and comprehensive” trade deals for the boldest reformers and regulated migration.
It is not quite the Marshall Plan wanted by some, but it is the right start. It still has to be approved by member states. Can they overcome their exhaustion, self-obsession and defensiveness to embrace the Arab revolutions? Yes, they must.
http://www.economist.com/node/18742308
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