"Towards a post-American Europe: a power audit of EU-US relations" by ECFR

10.31.00am GMT Fri 6th Nov 2009

The publication of ECFR's latest report entitled "Towards a post-American Europe: a power audit of EU-US relations" by ECFR analyst Nick Witney and Jeremy Shapiro from the Brookings Institution has been announced. ECFR says, "Europe has the US president it wished for, but Barack Obama lacks the strong transatlantic partner he wants.

"ECFR cautions EU member states: an unsentimental President Obama has already lost patience with a Europe lacking coherence and purpose. In a post-American world, the United States knows it needs effective partnerships to ensure that it remains the 'indispensable nation'. If Europe cannot step up and adapt to the new environment, the US will look for other privileged partners to do business with. ECFR's Power Audit -- based on extensive interviews and on structured input from all the European Union's 27 member states -- reveals that Europeans have so far failed to shake off the attitudes, behaviours, and strategies they acquired over decades of American hegemony. This sort of Europe is of rapidly decreasing interest to the US. The authors call for EU leaders to enter a new stage of EU-US relations, which requires Europeans to have their own positions on big strategic issues -- Russia and European security, Afghanistan, the Middle East peace process, climate change and others-- in relation to European interests and then engage with the US by negotiating compromises, instead of hoping to persuade and preserve transatlantic harmony for harmony's sake without questioning what it is good for."

Comments can be addressed to the authors directly at nick.witney@ecfr.eu and JSHAPIRO@brookings.edu. Link to the full report:

http://ecfr.eu/page/-/documents/towards-a-post-american-europe.pdf

**************************************************************************************************