On "Subject" mention article name and
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Europe
Bashing: an American amusement |
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Joaquín
Roy
(1)
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With
the exhaustion of the honeymoon rendered by the European backing of the United
States in solidarity for the September 11 attacks, a worrisome and tenacious
anti-European attitude has extended itself over many U.S. political, economic
and media circles. This illness has spread contagiously to Latin America, and it
threatens to explode during the European-Latin America-Caribbean Summit to be
held May 17-18 in Madrid. The Americas seem to be posed to send a bill to Europe
for most of the real and imaginary ills suffered by the foreign policy of the
only super power, and for the precarious international position of Latin America
and the Caribbean in the confusing world disorder.
 The
gravity of this situation has reached such levels that important European
leaders have issued statements laced with unusual crudeness on what they
perceive as a dangerously interventionist and unilateral policy of the United
States. In spite of the special relationship between UK and the United States,
British PM Tony Blair and EU Commissioner Chris Patten have not resisted the
temptation of confronting with perplexity the latest White House actions. While
French and German leaders have been too busy in a difficult election season,
Italian and Spanish government executives have maintained a prudent silence as a
traditional endorsement of the European right for the U.S. policies. Smiles by
Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar while visiting President Bush have
contrasted with the serious face sported by EU Commission President Romano Prodi,
slapped by U.S. tariff imposed on European steel.
Meanwhile,
the endemic madness of the Middle East and the perturbing acts of anti-Semitism
in Europe have prompted influential U.S.  columnists to engage in vitriolic
theses against European criticisms of what it is perceived as unconditional U.S.
backing of Israel. Crossing the line, the conservative columnist George Will
(“The Washington Post”, May 2) branded the anti-Semitic incidents as the
“Phase Two” of the “Final Solution,” equating European reticence with
the systematic Hitlerian ideology. Chris Patten, who earlier in the year had set
the record straight with President Bush (“Financial Times”, Feb 14) for the
unnerving foreign policy of the United States in search of new axis of evil, on
top of the refusal to ratify the International Court, wiped with an anthological
article in the “Post” (May 
7)”. Other international commentators with an unblemished record of support
for Israel, among them Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa (“El País,” May
12), have used their columns in the same line of thought –the United States is
using the stereotype in a systematic search-and-destroy mission against any
critic of its policy in which the planet is subdivided into two bands: the ones
who side with no conditions with the United States and its unconditioned allies,
and the rest.
South
from Rio Bravo and Key West, this fashion is replicated. Since the financial
disaster of Argentina, the cyclical or new ills of Latin American are in search
of a culprit. In a coalition formed with the simplistic vision from Washington,
the magic escape goat has been found: Europe, some of its countries and
economies, or the collective entity of the EU, a la Le Pen, who has discovered
Brussels as the cause for all the disasters generated by old-fashioned
politicians or uncontrolled immigration.
It
all began with anti-Spain campaign in Argentina caused by the overwhelming
dominance of the Spanish banks in the country’s financial transformation. More
recently, European prudence in labeling Colombian guerrillas as “terrorist”
(while the Colombian president was negotiating and awarding them large chunks of
territory as safe heaven) has degenerated in the discovery of a new enemy to
complete a new Colombia “axis of shame” along naïve NGOs and the liberal
press. If the state is tumbling down by force of impotence and corruption and
the society is cracked between narcotrafficking and generalized kidnapping, it
must be Europe’s fault, for not shelling enough dole while the American
provide the helicopters and the Colombians deliver the dead, in an efficient,
cost-efficient division of labor matching the expectations of the IMF.
In
the context of the EU-Latin American Summit, the cause for the low level (5%) of
EU-LA trade must be the perfidious EU Common Agricultural Policy (PAC) that
impedes the free access of Latin American products to the European lucrative
market. Some questions are in order:
 How
a substantial increase of trade or a partial dismantling of the PAC in a sort of
affirmative action for Latin America (why not the Middle East of North Africa?)
would correct the endemic structural problems of the Latin American societies?
How
Europe would reshape the world prices of commodities? By more subsidies?
How
“more of the same” (free trade, privatization, the shrinking of government,
and all the darlings of the Washington/Chicago- inspired policies) would
substantially change the picture?
Where
are the alleged benefits of NAFTA for Mexico, while poverty levels have
increased?
Perplexity
in Brussels balloons when it is demanded from the EU what the United States is
not willing to give away in an virtual integration system such as NAFTA –free
mobility of some of the economy factors. A PAC a la North-America is a fact with
its subsidies to agriculture, which survival depends of cheap, illegal labor. It
is strange that at the same time there is no dismantling of borders to permit
the legalization of de facto guest workers, and even less of an attempt to
create structural funds. Like an intra-EU “foreign aid” which has been the
key for the success of Europe’s integration. This is exactly what Mexican
President Vicente Fox was asking
for ... just days before September 11. This utopia vanished the same way as the
Twin Towers.
Top 
1) Joaquín
Roy>> is ‘Jean Monnet’ Professor of
European Integration, Director of the EU Center, and Senior Research Associate
of the North-South Center, of the University of Miami
Revista INTER-FORUM is affiliated with
(ICCAP) Any reproduction in part or whole is strictly forbidden without the authors written authorization
Top
May
20, 2002
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