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CNN World Report

European Nations Express Concern Over Bush Administration's Foreign Policy

Aired May 27, 2001 - 14:12   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ASIEH NAMDAR, CNN ANCHOR: Differing views on trade and the environment are hot button issues between the United States and the European Union. The EU is challenging the Bush administration to cut bureaucratic rhetoric and broaden its global concerns. The U.S. is optimistic the two trading blocks can overcome the differences, as this report from EUTV explains.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JIM GIBBONS, EUTV REPORTER (voice-over): Few in Europe doubt the value of EU-U.S. cooperation. In trade terms alone, it's worth more than a billion dollars a day. There are many areas which the two sides collaborate, helping poor nations and fighting crime and disease, but some Europeans fear that President Bush is not paying enough attention to the wider world.

ENRIQUE BARON, SPANISH MEMBER, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: This is not the best moment because we are facing with the new administration a tendency to unilateralism.

GIBBONS: U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick met the European parliament's Trade and Industry Committee. He said he was confident that the existing problems can be overcome.

ROBERT ZOELLICK, U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE: I think it is folly to assume that people are always going to agree on these topics. The question is whether you have enough commonality that you'll be willing to debate and discuss them and try to find some common basis over time.

GIBBONS: One of the main worries in Europe is that Washington doesn't share its commitment to the environment. The U.S. decision not to implement to the Kyoto Protocol has left some fearing that even ecological legislation, such as the new directive to recycle electrical goods and reduce the harmful contents of new ones, may be seen by the United States as a protectionist trade measure and challenged at the WTO.

ROLAND MOREAU, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, GREENPEACE BELGIUM: It is insane to promote free trade to the detriment of the environment. It cannot be like that.

GIBBONS: Within the European parliament, concern that the Kyoto decision could be a payoff to President Bush's oil industry backers has led to green-led cross-party calls for a boycott of Esso, and Exxon and Mobile. Claiming can Kyoto would harm U.S. workers cuts little ice.

HEIDI HAUTALA, FINNISH MEMBER, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: It seems, at the moment, that the United States is escaping, a little bit, its global responsibility. We Europeans are now trying to invite them back, and I think it's high time because otherwise, there will be no climate change policy.

GIBBONS: During the debate, members raised other issues that caused friction, trade disagreements over bananas, genetically modified crops and hormones, the son of star wars missile defense plan, Europe's plans for a rapid reaction force, and some aspects of U.S. foreign policy. MEPs believe such differences could be overcome if there was more direct contact between the Congress and European parliament.

JAMES ELLES, BRITISH MEMBER, EUROPEAN UNION: We need to think in the longer term of a trans-Atlantic assembly where the legislators can get together to discuss specific issues, because after all, you are dealing increasingly in a global environment, questions of global governance.

GIBBONS: Despite the headlines, there are still more points of agreement than disagreements, and trade remains essential to both sides. Trade wars, after all, have no winners, but cooperation has to be a two way business.

(on camera): There is a feeling amongst the members here in Strasburg that the new administration in Washington is taking too narrow a view of world affairs. They feel that two of the world's greatest trading blocks need to talk together for the sake of the world at large.

Jim Gibbons, EUTV for the CNN WORLD REPORT.

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