LONDON:
The Observer (liberal weekly), June 10:
George W. Bush is paying his first visit to Europe. As Renée
Zellweger's innocent abroad, Nurse Betty, put it in the film
of the same name: "THE Europe!" So, in the spirit
of transatlantic friendship, The Observer offers Mr.
Bush its own modest protocol guide.
Tip one: Avoid speaking languages you do not know. Except English.
Europeans still snigger at John F. Kennedy's efforts at German
while visiting Berlin during the Cold War, where he declared
rousingly: "I am a little cake." Tip two: Slovenia
is not the same place as Slovakia, a misconception you may have
labored under in the past. This is important to remember as
you will be visiting Slovenia's capital, Ljubljana, to meet
Vladimir Putin. (Mr. Putin is President of Russia.) Tip Three:
the London Underground is a mass transit system, not a banned
terrorist organization planning a rogue missile launch against
Des Moines.
And tip four, avoid ethnic American headwear. Madeleine Albright,
Bill Clinton's Secretary of State, was awfully fond of wearing
jaunty Stetsons to summits. Don't. Europe's political caste
find U.S. statesmen in funny hats cheesy and unaccountably alarming.
LISBON: Diario de Noticias (independent),
June 12:
If Bush's enemies could have prepared a scenario for his launch
in the European political arena, they could not have done better:
the execution of a man sentenced to death, to show he is a barbarian;
weeks of promoting the use of coal, the dirtiest energy source,
to solve the electricity cuts affecting California and spreading
to the rest of the country; the intransigent defense of an anti-missile
system which he has not yet explained well and which no other
country in the world appears willing to accept; a rhetoric of
inflexibility towards his enemies which has not been seen since
the Cold War; and a stubbornness with regard to direct intervention
in the negotiations of the serious Israeli-Palestinian crisis.
LONDON: The Guardian
(liberal), June 12:
[What] Bush…badly needs to hear [is] that much of his policy
is deeply, crassly irresponsible—and he should go away
and think again.
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FRANKFURT:
Klaus-Dieter Frankenberger, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
(conservative), June 12:
Many Europeans view Mr. Bush as a self-satisfied, execution-supporting
president of a world power so intoxicated with itself that it
pays little or no heed to the concerns and interests of others
and sees in itself the measure of all things, a power that does
not care about international rules, principles and organizations,
but behaves as if its sole desire is to achieve the greatest
possible advantages for itself and maximize its freedom of action….
The government in Washington would do well to exercise a degree
of restraint and modesty, as Mr. Bush originally intended, even
if the United States is at the zenith of its power. The United
States should follow the motto that those whose leadership is
characterized by cooperation and calculability will not on every
occasion fall under the stereotypical suspicion of arrogance,
hegemony, and a desire to rule the world.
For their part, the Europeans would be well advised to banish
arrogance and hysteria from their repertoire of reactions whenever
they are confronted by U.S. decisions and intentions that do
not necessarily coincide with their own. They do not need to
demonstrate a lack of self-confidence vis-à-vis the United States—certainly
not as long as they are aware of the existing limits to their
own power and ability to act.
However, it would be foolish to carry out Europe's unification
process and emergence as a global player in opposition to the
United States. Europe should understand the U.S. challenge as
an appeal to become a partner that can assume a greater share
of the burden and not an impudent rival.
MADRID: El Mundo (centrist),
June 13:
The U.S. president's skill was to link the fight against terrorism
in Spain with the terrorism he wants to fight with his neo-galactic
shield. Bush found [Prime Minister José María] Aznar even more
willing to let himself be convinced than expected. The fight
against ETA is well worth a shield and vice versa. That was
about the only thing on which the two leaders saw eye-to-eye:
discussions on the Kyoto Protocols and the death penalty showed
the big distances that fortunately separate European liberal
centrism from entrenched U.S. conservatism.
ROME: Francesca Colesanti, Il
Manifesto (leftist), June 13:
Mr. "Toxic Texan" has landed in Europe with his pollution-emissions
and missile defense skeletons in tow….The real conflict between
Bush and the European heads of state will be Bush's rejection
of the Kyoto Protocols on the grounds that it will harm the
U.S. economy. Considering the United States alone is responsible
for 25 percent of greenhouse emissions, it cannot refuse to
participate in the common effort to curb them. |
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