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Paris: For Senator Barack Obama, who came to Europe once in the last four years - making a stop in London on his way to Russia, the response of many Europeans to his potential presidency has been gratifying - emotional, responsive, replete with the sense of hope he seeks to engender about a more flexible, less ideological America.
European governments and politicians are not so sure.
On Thursday evening, in a glittering Berlin, Obama delivered a tone poem to American and European ideals and shared history.
But he was vague on crucial issues of trade, defence and foreign policy that currently divide Washington from Europe and are likely to continue to do so even if Obama becomes president - issues ranging from Russia, Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan to new refuelling tankers and chlorinated chickens, the focus of an 11-year European ban on American poultry imports.
Europeans admire Obama's political skills, and welcome his apparent readiness to respect opposing points of view. For many here, that raises the prospect of a sharp break with the policies of the Bush administration, especially in its first term, when the United States chose to ignore the Geneva Conventions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rejected the Kyoto accord on global warming and invaded Iraq, starting a war that some of America's European allies opposed.
"Will we acknowledge that there is no more powerful example than the one each of our nations projects to the world?" Obama asked in his speech, then added pointedly, "Will we reject torture and stand for the rule of law?" The huge crowd applauded and waved American flags.
"On the positive side, we can expect somebody who reasons the way we do in Europe," said Pierre Rousselin, the foreign editor of Le Figaro, a French newspaper, after the speech. "That said, on climate issues, the economy and world politics there are still questions. There will be a difference, but very quickly Obama will be faced with concrete questions, like Afghanistan."
Eberhard Sandschneider of the German Council on Foreign Relations said: "The Obama who spoke tonight did not put all his cards on the table." Obama "tried to use all the symbolism of Berlin to indicate that as president he would reach out to Europe," Sandschneider said. "But between the lines he said very clearly that Europe needs to do more," especially on Afghanistan and Iraq.
Europeans are wary about Obama's call for more European money for defence and more soldiers for the fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan. They worry that he will not alter what they see as President Bush's unbending bias in favour of Israel.
Meeting with Sarkozy
The debate raged even as Obama met in Paris with the pro-US President Nicolas Sarkozy yesterday. His plane, bearing the slogan "Change we can believe in," landed at Le Bourget airport and the Democrat then headed into Paris to be greeted on the steps of the Elysee palace by a smiling Sarkozy.
"Bonjour," said Obama, after he was urged by journalists to say something in French and to pose for more handshakes with the French rightwing leader.
He is due to meet in London today with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, opposition Conservative leader David Cameron and former premier Tony Blair, before flying back to the US.
European leaders are particularly concerned about Obama's positions on trade, taken during the bruising Democratic campaign against Senator Hillary Clinton, which seem to many to veer toward protectionism.
Europe's trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, last month urged both Obama and his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, to reject "the false comforts of populism" and abandon "the protectionist and anti-trade rhetoric" that dominated the primaries.
Mandelson noted that Obama had pledged to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and had opposed a new trade deal with Colombia. "A crisis of American confidence in globalisation," Mandelson said, "could knock it off course."
Obama in his address spoke of the need for Europeans and Americans to recognise common challenges in an easily travelled world of nuclear proliferation, carbon emissions, violence, poverty and genocide.
But he offered more tepid support for free trade, even as negotiators in Geneva, including Mandelson, try to break an impasse that has dogged global trade talks for seven years. Obama said he wanted to "build on the wealth that open markets have created" but only if trade agreements were "free and fair for all," a phrase that suggests fidelity to the trade-wary stance of one wing of the Democratic Party.
Europeans are upset about a recent decision by the Pentagon to order a new round of bidding for a $35-billion (Dh128.5 billion) contract for aerial refuelling tankers. A European-led consortium won the lucrative contract, beating Boeing, earlier this year. But Boeing and its congressional supporters managed to have the bid reviewed and ultimately overturned.
The Europeans are unhappy with a five-year, $289-billion farm bill that maintains sizable subsidies for American farmers, even as the Europeans vow to review their own farm subsidies as a spur to trade talks. The United States complains that the European ban on American poultry costs American farmers about $200 million a year. The Europeans do not like the chlorine bath Americans use to disinfect their chickens, an argument that is less about safety than about taste.
Obama offered greater support for Europe's great experiment in shared sovereignty, the European Union, which now includes 27 nations. "In this century, we need a strong European Union that deepens the security and prosperity of this continent, while extending a hand abroad," he said, a nod to the large amounts of foreign assistance the Europeans provide. But he also called for a more muscular Europe to act with the United States in the common defence, a politically delicate matter here that is likely to prove an irritant no matter who wins the presidency.
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| This article on the national political campaigns in the United States is from The New York Times. It was specially selected and prepared by the editors of The New York Times News Service. |
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