U.S. Decision to Skip Meeting Seen as Slight in Europe

U.S. Decision to Skip Meeting Seen as Slight in Europe
By STEVEN ERLANGER
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: February 2, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/03/world/europe/03europe.html?ref=global-home


PARIS — President Obama has decided not to attend a United States-European Union summit meeting scheduled for Madrid in May, and European Union officials found out about the decision through news outlets late on Monday, senior European officials said Tuesday morning.

The Spanish prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who is scheduled to arrive in Washington in two days on a visit, was described as angry and embarrassed, and European officials said there was a set of high-level diplomatic exchanges overnight.

The White House explained the decision as a matter of scheduling, insisting that the May visit to Europe was never on the president’s agenda, so it could not be said to have been canceled.

But European officials said that two senior American officials — the under secretary of state for political affairs, William J. Burns, and the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, Philip H. Gordon — had attended a preparatory meeting for the gathering two weeks ago in Madrid, and that there was no hint then that Mr. Obama would decide not to attend.

But Mr. Gordon told journalists in Washington on Monday that the trip to Spain “was never on his agenda,” referring to Mr. Obama. The president had “traveled more to Europe in his first year probably than any president has ever done in the past, and he looks forward to continuing his engagement bilaterally with European allies and directly with the European Union.”

Mike Hammer, spokesman for the National Security Council at the White House, said that there were no plans for the trip to Madrid, but that “the president is committed to a strong U.S.-E.U. partnership, and with Europe in general” on topics like Afghanistan, counter-terrorism, the global economy and climate change.

Indications that Mr. Obama might not attend the summit meeting emerged in Davos, Switzerland, from foreign ministers who had attended the global gathering there. One senior European official suggested that after the loss of a Senate seat to the Republicans in Massachusetts, Mr. Obama would be doing less traveling to supposedly glamorous spots like Europe that would only feed Republican criticism.

American officials said that Mr. Obama was underwhelmed by the previous major summit meeting between the United States and the European Union, last June in Prague, and European Union officials said that the president even skipped a leaders’ lunch at a smaller, similar meeting in Washington last November, sending Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. instead — something they said that former President George W. Bush would never have done.

Charles Grant, the director of the Center for European Reform, a research center in London, said that the Obama snub “is a useful wake-up call for the E.U.” He said the European Union must realize “that no one will court them or have summits with them because Europe is a nice idea. They need to deliver.”

Mr. Obama sees Europe as an important ally, but “Obama clearly has no emotional identification with Europe,” Mr. Grant said. “He has a cool, analytical view of allies and partners, but when the Europeans can’t provide much to help America solve global security problems, he doesn’t want to spend too much time on it.”

Europe and NATO have provided troops for Afghanistan but not many more since Mr. Obama took office, particularly measured against the new American surge. Europe is divided on Russia and the Middle East, and has been very helpful on Iran, but mostly bilaterally.

“It’s unusual, and Europeans will be offended,” said Nicole Bacharan, a professor of political science at the Institut d’Études Politiques, known as Sciences-Po.

“But for Obama, there is no urgency about the relationship with Europe, Europe works fine and he needs to refocus on urgent matters,” Ms. Bacharan said. “It’s an example of his attitude towards the world, he hasn’t enough time, and his vision of the world is very analytical. He prioritizes but lacks empathy toward Europe. To please Europe is not his priority.”

The State Department spokesman, P. J. Crowley, said in Washington on Monday that the transition to a new leadership of the European Union after the ratification of the Lisbon Treaty may have been a factor. Declining to comment on Mr. Obama’s schedule, Mr. Crowley said, “We also have to recognize that with the Lisbon Treaty, Europe has gone through a fundamental structural change.”

He added: “Because of the changes involving the establishment of a E.U. council president and a European Commission president on top of the rotating E.U. presidency, I think it’s taking some time to work through exactly how various high-level meetings will happen. But we look forward to ongoing dialogue.”

European officials admitted Tuesday that there was a difficult transition under way as the first president of the European Council, Herman van Rompuy, and the new European head of foreign affairs, Catherine Ashton, move into their jobs and fill out their staffs. In the meantime, since the work must be done, Spain, which holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, is taking an important role in planning the European Union’s agenda and summit meetings.

But a senior European official insisted that there has never been any confusion about Mr. van Rompuy as Mr. Obama’s interlocutor, and that Mr. Zapatero and Spain would act as host and facilitator.

“Some confusion between new and old may have been a factor,” the European official said. “This is a special moment in Brussels, with a tectonic shift to a new structure, so there is a hole in the middle, and we are trying to fill it. But the cover is not yet thick and the Spanish are trying to hold the space that has been created — especially in a moment with an extraordinary economic crisis and structural problems.”

Cristina Gallach, the spokeswoman for the Spanish presidency of the European Union, said that the May summit “was on the agenda, and that these meetings are important signals to our peoples of good relations between Europe and the United States.”

Work on important European-American issues would continue in any event, Ms. Gallach said, listing issues of importance to Washington like the confidentiality of banking information in suspected cases of terrorism, the exchange of information on airline passengers before they fly to the United States, as well as other crucial issues like Iran, Russia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, climate change and the Balkans.

“The European Union wanted this meeting,” she said. “There are a number of important issues on which partnership is important, and a summit is a good and visible way to show the value of the relationship.”

Asked if it is possible that plans could be changed to allow the meeting to take place in Washington, Ms. Gallach said, “May is pretty far away.”

Maïa de la Baume contributed reporting.