The C.I.A. Report That Aggravates Brussels
By Alexandrine Bouilhet
Le Figaro
Friday 21 January 2005
EU: Americans draw a portrait of a Europe overtaken economically by China, India, and even Brazil in 2020. From Brussels:
Seen from Washington, the European Union is not a power of the future. In 2020, it will be surpassed on an economic level by China, India, and even Brazil or Indonesia. Weighted down by an aging population, tanking growth, and unending enlargement, Europe will be incapable of playing the role to which it aspires on the international scene. In fifteen years, only the United States will still be able to avail itself of the superpower title. These are the not very encouraging conclusions for the Old Continent of a forecasting study published mid-January by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), the C.I.A. Director's "think tank." (1)
"Europe's ability to weigh in on world affairs will depend on its political cohesion," we read in the report. "The integration of ten new countries will be a brake on the deepening of its institutions, the emergence of a common strategic vision, foreign policy, and European defense." According to the NIC study, directed by Robert Hutchings, in fifteen years the combined military expenditures of member states will be less than those of China or the United States. "European countries always have trouble coordinating their military expenditures," the report indicates. Europe's ability to establish a common army remains an "open question," especially since it would "compete with NATO forces." Champion of "multilateralism," Europe could, at best, "serve as a model of regional governance" for emerging powers seeking alliances apart from the United States.
Entitled, "Mapping the Global Future," this document, a synthesis of 120 pages edited from the analyses of over one thousand experts across five continents, has thrown a chill over Brussels' offices. Not only does it give no mention to the planned Constitution, but also the enlargement to the East, a project which the United States nonetheless supported, is largely depicted as an economic brake, "Brussels having only a small fraction of the funds necessary for the new member states to catch up economically." Turkey's entry is analyzed as a source of tensions because of the integration of a "large Muslim population."
In the absence of major economic reforms, notably in Germany, France, and Italy, "the European Union runs the risk of exploding into pieces or disintegrating," renouncing the adhesion of Turkey and the Balkans, and, at the same time, of playing a major role on the global scene. Eurocrats are all the more aggravated by this "simplistic" and "catastrophic" vision of the Union in that they are minutely preparing for George W. Bush's visit to Brussels February 22. "If the NIC experts believe the Union to be a negligible quantity, why should the President of the United States waste his time coming to Brussels?" one asks. "We don't have time to waste with these kinds of polemics," dryly retorts an official from the entourage of Union diplomatic head, Javier Solana. "Our policy is not to talk about Americans, but to speak with them! We have to work together on Russia, the Ukraine, the Middle East. It's not the time for theory, but for practice." The Americans' recent commentaries on Turkey's entry into the Union have had a talent for irritating the Finnish Commissioner for Enlargement. "The United States has no business interfering in negotiations between Brussels and Ankara," he repeated to Parliament this week. "Enlargement is a European, not an American, affair."
" I'm thinking of a God very different from the God of the Christian and the God of Islam, because both are depicted as omnipotent Oriental despots, cosmic Saddam Husseins." Philosopher Antony Flew 1922 - .
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