It’s time for tough talking in bid to bridge the transatlantic gap

RELATIONS between the EU and the US have been little short of disastrous at times over the past two years.

The Americans behaved like petulant children subjecting commissioners to public body searches at US airports, having candidate countries sign up to US penned letters adding to the EU split on Iraq and assigning minor officials to meet senior EU people visiting Washington to name but a few of the slights.

Even yesterday, on the eve of the annual EU-US summit being billed as a fence-mending exercise, President George W Bush returned to a former theme accusing the EU of starving Africa because those countries are reluctant to accept GMO food from the US. They blame Europe's attitude that insists on extensive testing and labelling for this.

So poor were relations this time last year that the two-hour, 20 minute-long meeting that included lunch ended ten minutes early despite the lengthy agenda dealing with legal, economic, trade and diplomatic issues. EU diplomats say that this year things will be different.

Their optimism is based on their having a list of items they know they can deliver on the so called deliverables that the US bottom line approach appreciates.

They also see signs that the US is more inclined to listen this year as the difficulty they face in stabilising Iraq becomes clearer and they need someone to share the cost burden.

While the Americans may be ready to be less arrogant in their approach, the Europeans are travelling to Washington with a little more self confidence than usual. The past year, thanks to the US, has forced them to assess the EU-US relationship and the role of the EU on the world stage.

The assessment makes Europe look good. The soon to be enlarged European Union will be the world's largest single trading block with a quarter of the world's GDP.

The Europeans, however, are more anxious to emphasise the interdependency of the two - for example half of US exports go to Europe and half the foreign direct investment in the US comes from Europe and supports seven million jobs in the US.

The fact of the matter is that the EU and the US are fairly evenly matched when it comes to economics and both are highly dependent on the other.

After neglecting the Transatlantic Business Dialogue one of the main drivers of common business interests in the past the Bush administration has now rediscovered it and it is being relaunched in a more American streamlined format.

The 17 main items on today'sOK agenda shows clearly that there has been a lot of give and take between the two blocs over the past few months.

In areas of security, weapons of mass destruction, fighting terrorism, and foreign policy the EU is at last drawing up policies of its own but the Americans will be pleased to see much of it reflects the US policy.

The critics warn that while the EU has not adopted the Bush administration policy of preemptive military strike it is ignoring the need to fully protect civil rights.

On the other hand Europe has won a few long fought battles such as that over Galileo, Europe's satellite system that will compete with the US Global Positioning system.

The British and the Americans battled against it for the past few years and only last year the member states finally agreed to Galileo, which is technically more advanced than GPS.

They will now agree to ensure both systems are compatible.

There are some examples too where America has accepted it must work with the EU rather than individual countries such as on the issue of opening up the transatlantic flight market and on maritime transport security.

The US insisted on doing individual deals with EU member countries on container security but now accepts the European Commission is the body they must deal with though the agreement itself will remain the same.

The Middle East will be the main foreign policy issue but there will be some tough talking on Iraq where the Europeans will make it quite clear they are not yet ready to pick up the bill for putting Iraq back together again.

The US failure to sign international treaties will also be touched on, such as the International Criminal Court, as will the rows at World Trade Organisation level on steel and GMOs.