Round The World

New Delhi, 18 June 2008

Bush Attends Final EU Summit as President

By Dr. Monika Chansoria

Research Fellow, Centre for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi

President George W. Bush embarked upon a concluding visit to Europe while in office, so as to attend his eighth and final European Union (EU) Summit near the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana on June 10, 2008.

With a range of significant issues on the agenda, the summit primarily remained focused on discussions regarding the contentious issue of Iran’s nuclear pursuit and climate change.

On a rather reflective note, President Bush said, “My first trip to Europe as President began in Slovenia, and so does my last trip as President to Europe.” The weeklong trans-Atlantic visit included the EU-US summit followed by trips to Germany, Italy, the Vatican, France, and Britain.

International concern on the ongoing turmoil with reference to Tehran’s nuclear programme surfaced yet again at the forefront during the summit with President Bush aiming to convince member states of the EU to apply further effective sanctions against Iran.

This included crucial persuasion by President Bush to take stringent steps to stop the flow of money through Iranian banks, which Washington believes are providing crucial funds towards Iran’s controversial nuclear programme.

While speaking to reporters in Ljubljana, US special envoy to the EU, C. Boyden Gray said, “There are Iranian bank activities that could be curbed, there could be further restrictions in compliance with resolution 1803,” adopted in March by the UN Security Council to beef up measures against Tehran. Furthermore he added, “Both sides must make sure there are no evasions whereby Iranian banks can continue to do business to further this nuclear programme which I think we all agree must be terminated.”

Washington desires the European Union to take measures particularly against the Iranian Melli Bank by discontinuing its branches in Hamburg, London and Paris from operating so as to stop the abuse of the international banking system to support proliferation and terrorism.

Meanwhile, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana indicated that he would travel to Tehran shortly for talks aimed at convincing Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities. However, Solana refused to give in details saying, “We will have several meetings in Tehran with various people and we will see. I am not going to speak now about the contents of the package.”

Reacting to this overture, Iran gave its pre-emptive judgment of the deal that holds out the promise of economic, technological, educational and political rewards—dead on arrival, assuming the offer is conditioned on Iran halting its uranium enrichment, which it is.

The Iranian sentiment was precisely demonstrated in the statement by Iran’s spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham to the official IRNA news agency, “If suspension is included in the package, it won’t be considered at all. The position of the Islamic Republic of Iran is clear. Preconditions can’t be raised for any halt or suspension.”

These statements clearly indicate that the predicament over Tehran’s nuclear quest would continue to remain extremely intense in the coming future.

Even though, Bush and his European counterparts announced in a communiqué that they are prepared to go beyond current United Nations sanctions to pressure Iran not to develop nuclear weapons, what remains rather unclear is how far the Europeans would echo President Bush’s tough rhetoric against Iran.

The communiqué from the US and the 27 nations EU said Iran must undertake a ‘full and verifiable’ suspension of its uranium enrichment programme and must disclose any prior weapons-related work to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

“Now is the time for there to be strong diplomacy. They can either face isolation, or they can have better relations with all of us. We’ll find new sanctions if need be,” Bush said after a meeting, appearing with Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso.

Moving over, the other crucial issue that took center stage at the summit was that of climate change and global warming that has incessantly been a sticking point of US-European relations.

The EU has pledged to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 20 per cent by 2020. Though Washington wishes that any global agreement on climate change should include pledges by fast-growing economies, such as India and China as well.

“I think that there is a growing recognition, not only in the US, but in Europe as well, that in order for a new international climate agreement to be accepted, it’s got to be both environmentally effective and economically sustainable,” Dan Price, Deputy National Security Adviser for international affairs said.

Significantly, amidst towering global oil prices and worrying inflation, Bush expressed concern over the condition of the dollar and promised to stress ‘our nation's commitment to a strong dollar’—with the White House joining in with the Federal Reserve in calling for an end to the dollar’s droop.

Before his arrival in Europe, President Bush gave a statement in Washington on June 9 where he reiterated, “The US economy has continued to grow in the face of unprecedented challenges. We got to keep our economies flexible—both the US economy and European economies need to be flexible in order to deal with today’s challenges.”

Crucially, the waning dollar is turning out to be a major hurdle towards the recovery of the American economy given the high prices of oil and growing inflation.

President Bush’s comments at the White House could well be viewed as a reassurance to the European community that is ever more upset about the condition of the dollar, particularly against the euro. The European leadership has expressed concerns that a weak dollar is hurting their economies in that Europe depends more on exports with a daily trade worth $3 billion with Washington.

All in all, the EU summit was the very last of President Bush’s visit to Europe, while being the President of the United States and understandably, there was not any breaking announcement in the offing. The trip was widely analyzed more as a valedictory one given that President Bush would be making way for America’s new President come January, bringing an end to a presidency that was marked by stern antagonism by many Europeans vis-à-vis the US-led war in Iraq.---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)