Bush visit may herald changes in US dealings with the EU

EVERY hotel in Brussels has been booked out for weeks now with delegations coming from all over Europe for the Bush visit next week.

Local Belgians in the EU area of the city are furious with the security arrangements as it will mean closing their restaurants, cafes, bars and shops for at least two days.

Tension is high among the civil servants in the Commission as they work on all the last minute details for the visit of the US President.

Up to now the US has ignored the EU preferring to deal with individual countries. The Bush visit to the Commission and to meet the prime ministers of the EU countries as a body marks a change.

However, nobody should expect that this is going to be one, big rosy love-in. The signs suggest it will be a nod in the right direction, but whether it will be any more is something only the future will tell.

The visit last week of Mr Bush’s favourite, new Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, was a foretaste of the Bush visit.

EU diplomats were pleased with the tone and the content of her key-note speech delivered in Paris where she talked about the transatlantic alliance and its importance.

Mr Bush is expected to take a similar line. But anybody expecting a major change in direction overnight will be disappointed, if Ms Rice press conference after her meeting the Commission is any indication.

She gave a history lesson that jarred with many Europeans who heard it, dating the birth of the relationship between Europe and the US to World War II.

The message appeared to be that Mr Bush’s ambition to spread democracy is rooted in the US experience in post war Europe.

Then she referred to the Middle East road map as President Bush’s vision. The EU is particularly proud of its role in devising the idea of this peace plan, even bestowing on it a piece of its own jargon - road-map.

Ms Rice was very careful however with the hot potato that is Europe’s lifting of the arms embargo on China by saying all the US could ask was that the EU would take their concerns into consideration.

She was also careful with a question on Ukraine and did not push it into the EU as the US did so diligently with Turkey.

Surprisingly Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso was the most short tempered of the trio during the press conference. The man who hosted the war conference between Bush, Blair and Spain’s Aznar before the Iraq invasion appeared not to like Ms Rice version of history.

He delivered his own history lesson dating the US-Europe relationship to a little earlier than Ms Rice had done - to the founding of the US. The genesis of the US came about as a result of two great movements - English liberalism and the French revolution with its drive for equality and democracy.

He spoke of two long-standing allies working together to promote democracy and stability in the world. The former Portuguese prime minister spelt out the might of the EU - 25 member states with over 450 million people - and said both blocs need one another. “The problems are too complex to go it alone,” he said.