ANALYSIS: EU and US - Can different planets meet?

Europe Features

Jun 10, 2008, 17:36 GMT

Brdo, Slovenia - US pragmatism favours clear-cut answers to complex questions. Food prices have hit record highs. Time to plant more genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Oil pollutes and costs too much? Build more nuclear power stations. Iran may be making an atomic bomb? Better flex the West's military muscles. Such solutions are likely to send shivers down the spine of a typical German or Italian. And yet, there are growing indications that Europe may be slowly coming round to recognizing that on some issues at least, US President George W Bush has a point. Take nuclear energy, for instance. While US officials argue that it offers an obvious solution to the problem of climate change, Europeans with vivid memories of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986 are still reluctant to embrace the technology. Predictably, the joint declaration issued after an EU-US summit in Brdo, Slovenia, did not explicitly mention nuclear energy, instead making a general reference to the need to promote 'clean and renewable energy sources.' This is entirely understandable. Only days before, a power plant located about 100 kilometres from the site of the summit experienced a minor leak. No radioactivity was released, but it was enough to cause panic as far away as Lisbon and Dublin. And yet, more and more European governments are gradually warming to the idea that nuclear energy is the solution, not only to fighting climate change, but also to reducing their dependency on Middle Eastern oil or Russian gas. In Italy, the new government of Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said it plans to relaunch nuclear power, 21 years after a referendum sparked by the Chernobyl disaster outlawed it. Similar trends have already been experienced in Britain and are now showing in many of the EU's eastern states. According to Simon Tilford, an analyst at the London-based Centre for European Reform, the current surge in oil prices is helping bring about a 'fundamental shift' in the attitudes of many Europeans towards nuclear energy. 'There is definitely more openness to nuclear energy in Europe,' Tilford said. Peter Mandelson, the EU's external trade commissioner, believes this shift is welcome. 'Most people realize that we cannot achieve carbon reduction targets and secure our energy supplies without the use of nuclear energy,' Mandelson told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. Europeans may also come under pressure to re-think their aversion to GMOs, which European consumers frequently refer to as 'Frankenstein food', in the face of soaring food prices. 'We are in danger in Europe of keeping the developing world starving if we deny the opportunity to use GMOs that will increase agricultural yields and productivity,' the commissioner said. However, Tilford argues that deeply entrenched opposition to GMOs means the EU is unlikely to follow the US's lead any time soon. Officials in Brussels are already embracing the US's fondness for biofuels, while on Iran, Bush said in Brdo that the US and the EU were 'on the same page'. According to Mandelson, many of the perceived differences between the EU and the US stem from the fact that whereas Bush can be 'quite outspoken and focus on one option', the EU will always have 'a range of views'. This means those who speak on behalf of the 27-member bloc will always have to be 'more circumspect and balanced' in putting their views across. 'You have 27 nations all trying to come together to forge a common agenda,' Bush told EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso in Brdo. 'That's why I'd much rather have my job than Jose's job,' Bush added with a smile.

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Can different planets meet?Jun 10th, 2008 - 19:48:34

Simple answer: NO
Europeans have their feet on the ground while Bush has his head up Uranus.

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