Calling Europe

U.S. President Barack Obama will not attend May's EU-U.S. summit in Madrid. While the decision did not cause a major diplomatic rift, it did raise eyebrows in EU capitals as well as Washington, D.C. The move remains a mild but tangible embarrassment to the Lisbon Treaty-updated EU with its new foreign policy high representative, Catharine Ashton, and it is certainly an annoyance to the Spanish, who no doubt would have loved to host the world's most powerful politician. While Obama may be on the rough end of a long honeymoon with the public at home, he still has plenty of luster that rubs off wherever he travels.

The incident poses a series of questions: Why did Obama decide not to come? Has he been, as some have suggested, unimpressed by the previous meeting with EU heads of state, during the Czech EU presidency - lots of ceremony, too many words and not much action? Was the decision born out of sheer frustration as the United States continues to wonder who is in charge on the EU side of the table? Is it Ashton? Or new EU Council President Herman van Rompuy? Or Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero, whose country currently holds the rotating EU Presidency? Or is there a larger argument that Europe is diminishing as a place of strategic importance?

The last of these questions least likely leads to the answer. Of course, any good American conservative will rant about lazy Europeans on social benefits who aren't fit to stand up in the global market with the lean and hungry Far Easterners. But the truth is that Europe, together with the United States, still constitutes much of what is the world economy. There is no doubt the United States still needs to talk with Europe.

That said, it is true the Obama administration does not need to discuss economic issues with the EU as a whole. It can do this far more effectively by talking to member states individually. Yes, the EU is a common market, and decisions are formally taken by EU ministers collectively. And, yes, the executive branch of the EU, the European Commission, is in charge of technical details throughout the 27-member-state common market, but it remains the case that, when one needs to talk to actual decision-makers, a person does not fly to Brussels, but to Berlin, Paris or London.

This is even more the case with policies related to security and the military. The EU is a notable diplomatic presence; however, the union as a whole is still undecided on whether it will remain a soft power or develop its own military capabilities. Despite provisions in the Lisbon Treaty urging closer military integration, if the United States needs to engage its partners in a security dialogue, NATO remains the obvious platform.

Obama's decision most likely comes down to these practicalities and two of the issues raised in the questions above: It still remains unclear who is actually in charge of EU foreign policy, and EU meetings are, in fact, often chaotic and not very much to the point.

In the past, U.S. presidents have come to Europe not only to do business but simply to cultivate good relations. Former President Bill Clinton is still fondly remembered in Brussels for sneaking out of his hotel early in the morning to run down to Petit Sablon to enjoy a semi-private cup of coffee. And, in Prague, he toured the city, downed a few beers and even famously played the saxophone at the city's legendary Reduta Jazz Club in 1998.

But times have changed, and Obama, even if he was the Bohemian type - which he isn't -  has no time for such luxuries. He just presented to the U.S. public a budget with a record-breaking deficit. He will need to apply all of his political skills at home to drum up support as his economic advisers continue to try and shore up the economy, in particular to lower unemployment rates. As a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the man who promised to bring the soldiers home from Iraq, he needs to defend a budget that will nonetheless increase defense spending. And then there is, of course, the already watered-down healthcare bill, which will continue to draw his attention. With little time to spare, the Madrid meeting, with its unclear agenda, remains the most likely choice to go out the window.

This explanation returns us to the problems on the EU side. The EU remains in need of a stronger common voice, and a clear division of labor at the top. The EU is essentially a bureaucratic project, and the lack of a singular identity or any sort of symbolism continues to hamper the project when it comes to depicting who is in charge. If one visits Brussels, he or she will notice how essentially unassuming all EU politics are. EU commissioners, for example, are easily lost in the crowd.

In fact, in recent years, EU bureaucracy has become too unassuming. EU member states chose José Manuel Barroso, not a particularly forceful figure, for a second term as head of the commission, and, to back him up, they added a lackluster president and a high representative with no experience in international affairs.

Some of this is to be expected and can hardly be helped. The EU will no doubt continue to remain incomprehensible to many of its citizens. It is natural for the human mind to perceive organizations in terms of hierarchies, and the EU, as an exercise in multilevel governance, is bound to be confusing, on occasion, even to experts. Nonetheless, it would still be helpful if the EU's multiple leaders sat down and worked out who was responsible for what. They may never work out a magical formula to definitively answer Henry Kissinger's famous question, "Who do I call when I want to call Europe?" But certainly they could take steps to make Europe a bit less confusing to other world leaders, not to mention the citizenry.

Obama's decision not to come to Madrid will not have a noticeable effect on EU-U.S. relations. This partnership certainly has its ups and downs. Occasionally there is a spark or two, and there remains a playful rivalry. (Even the otherwise pro-American Barroso could not resist once U.S. banks began to topple, dropping the occasional remark about how the United State would no longer be able to lecture Europeans on the economy.) But, in the grand scheme of things, relations remain excellent.

If the United Kingdom's relationship with the United States is considered "special," the EU-U.S. relationship, while not as tight, is "cozy."

A summit meeting, or the lack thereof, cannot change that.

- The author is a fellow at the Brussels-based Centre for European Policy Studies, a former Reuters correspondent and a blogger for the Slovak daily Sme. He is a frequent contributor to op-ed pages in his native Slovakia.

Juraj Draxler can be reached at
features@praguepost.com