Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-04-Speech-3-185"
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"en.20030604.5.3-185"2
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"Madam President, the war in Iraq recently exposed clear political divisions between many EU leaders and the US Government, but we should reflect for a moment and ask ourselves the following question. Do we want to renew a transatlantic partnership or do we believe that it is in the best interests of the European Union to distance ourselves from the US Government at this time?
If a renewed transatlantic partnership is desirable it is certainly not going to be easy to achieve because of the ongoing differences between many EU governments and the present US administration. However, I believe that our common interests and concerns are best served by the European Union and the US Government working more closely together on a wide-ranging set of issues. We should not forget that over the last 50 years we have worked together to fashion an international legal order covering not just trade and security issues, but also issues relating to human rights and fundamental freedoms. It is equally important that the high emotions that exist at this time do not cause us to exaggerate our differences across a range of policy matters.
We should seek to address the relationship between the European Union and the USA by taking a careful and measured approach, rather than dealing with this very important relationship in a knee-jerk fashion.
The bottom line is simply this: I believe that the Union and the USA should work together to preserve our common interests, to minimise our collective differences, to maximise our own influence for good in the world. For example, our collective economies are only achieving moderate success at this particular time. One of the ways in which we can help to revive our economies is to ensure that the present deadlock in trade negotiations is broken. We must guarantee that the forthcoming World Trade Organisation talks, which will take place in September, are a real success. We must advance a positive agenda on trade matters and resolve disputes before they go to the WTO process.
We should also recall that we have worked very closely together in the battle against international terrorism. Issues that we have addressed together range from improving security in airlines to the issue of mutual extradition agreements. We are working closely together in the Balkans and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan the European Union has a bigger military presence than the United States. The EU is the biggest donor of humanitarian aid to the Afghan people.
The Middle East process has a better chance of success if the European Union and the United States work together with all the key contracting parties in the region so as to ensure that the present road map for peace guarantees both Israeli and Palestinian statehood and security in the region."@en1
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