WASHINGTON — It is admittedly difficult to explain to Americans why they should be excited about Ireland’s approval of the European Union’s Lisbon Treaty on Friday.   When told that the EU will run more smoothly under the new treaty, Americans are likely to want to know instead whether this means Europeans will do more on the global agenda.     Yet, just as we ask Europeans to appreciate the incremental nature of progress on policies like energy and health care, Americans should welcome the Irish “yes” as good news. Why? It’s a step forward for the EU in assuming more responsibility in international affairs.

The Irish “yes” sets the table for finishing the institutional reforms that were the flip side to the European Union’s enlargement to ten new members in Central and Eastern Europe.   The EU has been stuck in recent years, almost obsessively focused on its own internal reform after having been stung by European voters’ rejection of greater political integration.   Along with the newly elected center-right government in Germany, progress on the Lisbon Treaty makes this the time to encourage Europeans to live up to their global aspirations as partners with the United States.

The improvements provided by the Lisbon Treaty, once implemented, will represent modest progress.     It won’t solve the Henry Kissinger question of what telephone number to use when you want to speak with “Europe,” but it will help.   You’ll still need to decide what you want to talk about:   if it’s competition and antitrust policies, you should call the European Commission because they make the decisions in that area.   If it’s foreign policy, you should call the European Council, where the High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy resides (although you’ll still want to call the relevant national capitals as well, which retain control of their own foreign policies).  

There will be a President of the European Council with a two-and-a-half-year term, replacing the current system whereby the presidency rotates every six months among the members.   Horse-trading and speculation have already begun about the identity of the first President of the European Council (Tony Blair?   A lesser-known European like Luxembourg’s Jean-Paul Junker?), but this is inevitable and shouldn’t distract us from the bigger picture.   (I would be relieved if we would all agree to ignore Czech President Vaclav Klaus’ foot-dragging in fulfilling his obligation to sign the Lisbon Treaty already passed by the Czech Parliament.     Does he not care how poorly this reflects on his country among the other members of the EU?)

Sure, the EU remains confusing to Americans (as it does, to be fair, to many Europeans) but it doesn’t merit the casual scorn that it often gets from some American observers.   This is in part because Americans keep trying to see it as a “United States of Europe” and are disappointed when it doesn’t live up to our expectations.   The EU is not the government of Europe, nor likely will its institutions ever mirror the nation-state, but it is an important player in its own right in many areas where we need to work together.

The EU is already the match of the United States in the economic sphere, and our economies are deeply intertwined.   Progress on a world trade agreement has been languishing (even though there are those who say it’s already too late). At a minimum, American and European leaders should recommit themselves to the Transatlantic Economic Council as a forum for resolving economic and regulatory differences. On foreign policy, the EU has no combat troops to send, but many of the pressing challenges are on the post-conflict reconstruction and development side, where the EU’s experience could be valuable.   On climate change, the EU has staked out a bold promise to reduce emissions by 2020, and the United States could benefit from European lessons learned in creating a carbon market.

President Obama has made clear his view that the United States cannot solve the world’s problems alone. But Americans should go a step further on the public diplomacy side and reassure Europeans that a strong EU is in the American interest.   Although this has been the policy of every American president in recent decades, one of the divisive legacies of the Iraq war was the suspicion that in reality America really wants to divide Europe so it can pursue its own policies unilaterally.     Of course we will not agree on everything, and Americans and Europeans have deep and enduring differences over the use of force in international affairs.   But our differences shouldn’t be accompanied by dismissals of our mutual interest in dealing with the problems facing us on both sides of the Atlantic.

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I watched last week’s final presidential debate with GMF colleagues in town from Germany, Romania, and Serbia, which was fun and fascinating.   Without attributing anything to them, they seemed to me to respond most to Obama’s demeanor:   he appeared calm at a time when we’re using the word”crisis” attached to finances, Russia, Afghanistan, and other issues.   McCain appeared forceful, which was effective at times, but also somewhat agitated (or perhaps frustrated).   They were fascinated by the way the lines CNN used to record the simultaneous approval of a group of undecided Ohio voters seemed to reverse along gender lines:   when McCain spoke, approval from men rose and from women fell; when Obama spoke, the lines reversed.   And at the end, they turned and asked,”so what next?”

Read the electoral map, was my answer.   As we’ve witnessed in the last two presidential elections, the state by state electoral count is key, not national polls.   What’s remarkable is that the electoral map shows Obama winning outright at this point with 283 electoral votes without any of the so-called battleground states (see Real Clear Politics for a good map with polling averages state by state over time).   And the number of traditionally”red” states that are toss-ups is also surprising —    North Dakota, Nevada, and North Carolina — as are the traditionally solid states that are only”leaning” McCain, such as Georgia and Wyoming.   There are still two weeks before the election, a lot of time in politics, but it suggests the potential for dramatic change in the”red state-blue state” map we’ve come to use to understand the United States.

Could this be a”realignment” as Charles Madigan wrote in the Chicago Tribune?   Are the polls accurate?   The best guesses here turn on two issues:   potential racism and turnout.   The first is known in the United States as the”Bradley effect,” referring to an election for mayor of Los Angeles when polls showing an African-American candidate ahead before election day proved unreliable, presumably because people were  unwilling to tell a pollster their true voting intentions, that they would not vote for an African-American candidate, because they feared it would make them look bad.   Andrew Kohut raised this possibility earlier this year when interpreting Obama’s unexpected loss in the New Hampshire primary.   The counterargument is that the Bradley effect could be washed out if the many new voters registered by the Obama campaign actually turn out to vote and vote for him, but neither of these things are predictable.

All this suggests uncertainty:   polls within the traditional margin of error of 3% should be treated with caution.    Polls may be  all we’ve got to guess how people will vote, but a lot of things seem up in the air in many directions at this point.  

Two weeks to go!

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Whether it was the crowds in Berlin this summer or newspaper polls asking how Europeans would vote in the U.S. presidential elections, Senator Barack Obama has been seen as more popular in Europe than Senator John McCain.   We found Europeans to have a significantly more favorable opinion of Senator Obama than Senator McCain (69% to 26%) in this year’s Transatlantic Trends.   Europeans also said that if Senator Obama is elected, relations will improve; if Senator McCain is elected, relations will stay the same (interestingly, Americans had the same opinion).   The question in many minds  is whether these expectations are accompanied by support for the policies the next U.S. president is likely to pursue.  

Take the case of Afghanistan.   In this year’s survey, we chose to go beyond the”reconstruction vs. combat” choice asked in the past in part because I’ve been convinced that this is a false dichotomy.   Both U.S. candidates for example speak of seeking a”comprehensive strategy” including elements of both reconstruction and combat.   As one American policymaker said to me, it doesn’t help to build schools if they’re attacked once  you leave and we know that you can’t shoot your way to success.   So we asked whether the American and European publics would support a range of different missions:   economic reconstruction, combating narcotics production, training Afghan security forces, and combating the Taliban.   Interestingly, all three non-combat missions received support from Europeans while their support dropped sharply for combat (Americans supported all four missions).  

Did European favorability toward the candidates have any influence on their support for the options in Afghanistan?   Apparently not.   While both Obama and McCain are likely to ask Europeans for more in Afghanistan, we found no difference in the support for the options in Afghanistan between Europeans favorable to Obama or to McCain.   Both groups had relatively high support for the three non-combat missions, and both groups had low support for combatting the Taliban.     Does this mean that Europeans may favor Obama but not share his sense of what to do in Afghanistan?   Perhaps.   It suggests that Americans may need to do a better job articulating their vision of the mission in Afghanistan.   It also suggests that there may be room to negotiate support for a range of non-combat missions, and it highlights the challenges that either Obama or McCain will face when they seek to mend relations with our allies.

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After much speculation, Barack Obama’s team has announced he will travel to Europe this summer   – to Paris, Berlin, and London (the dates have not yet been announced for security reasons, although the London stop is rumored to be planned as early as next week).   John McCain visited Europe last March once it became clear that he would be the presumed Republican nominee, travelling with Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman, talking about global warming, and meeting many European leaders such as French President Nicolas Sarkozy for the third time.   Just the same, McCain ran into questions about his support for the war in Iraq.   Obama, presumably, should have an easier time here.   He can say, “I know you disagreed with the war in Iraq, so did I.”   But as I’ve noted earlier on this blog, Obama is not likely coming to Europe just to listen to criticism about the past.   When describing his planned trip, he noted pointedly that France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are our allies in Afghanistan where we can expect him to want Europeans to do more.   Others such as Roger Cohen have suggested Obama should even broach asking for help on Iraq, a subject the transatlantic allies have largely agreed not to raise in polite company.  

Even though Obama seeks foreign policy exposure, he will need to be careful from a domestic American perspective.   John Kerry in 2004 was labeled as “too French” for his eagerness to consult with Europeans, and one can imagine those ready to criticize Obama if he appears “too European” in his views.   The hubbub this week over whether Obama should speak at the Brandenberg Gate in Berlin has a domestic undertone apart from German concern that it would be campaigning abroad €“ Obama could be challenged for acting “too presidential” (a la JFK or Reagan) before he’s won the election, just as he was criticized for using an image on his speaking podium that too closely resembled the seal of the U.S. presidency.    All this suggests he will be walking a number of fine lines, even in front of a European audience that has been waiting breathlessly to meet him.

Update:   Mitt Romney, former-Republican candidate for president recently declared that he thinks  Obama”looks towards Europe for a lot of his inspiration” whereas McCain, he says,”is going to make sure that America stays America.”

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Nearly everywhere you turn, one hears that the world is  fascinated by Barack Obama.   Europeans have “Obamamania,” and Germans imagine Obama speaking in Berlin like Kennedy did in 1963.    I’ve been asked occasionally, does it matter to Americans what Europeans think?   In a recent radio program I did with Wisconsin Public Radio, a number of callers said that it mattered to them that America’s image had fallen in recent years, but Europeans might be careful here.   In 2004, British readers of the Guardian contacted Americans to urge them to vote for Kerry, a move that backfired, with Americans somewhat predictably telling them to, shall we say,  back off, to use somewhat more polite language.    It’s interesting to observe that Obama has said relatively little about Europe  at this point, in contrast to John McCain’s assertation that one of his top priorities as president would be to revitalize transatlantic relations.   As we move from the primaries to the next stage of the campaign, this summer is a natural time for candidates to develop their foreign policy positions with an eye on the general election.   Presidential candidates  often make trips abroad in the summer of an election year before the intensity of the fall campaign begins, and both sides of the Atlantic will be listening closely.      

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WASHINGTON — As President Bush makes what many think will be his last trip to Europe, some observers are warning against high hopes for change after the U.S. elections.   Timothy Lynch and Robert Singh  say  that Americans should not expect a big change in foreign policy regardless of who’s elected.   They argue that the candidates all agree with President Bush on the broad outlines of the challenges facing the U.S., disagreeing  only on tactics.   Similarly, the French scholar Dominique Moisi has observed that”the next president’s room for maneuver will be very small.”   Yet, if you look at Afghanistan — the issue in this week’s debate tracker on the GMF elections website – I’m not sure the”no change” view holds.

Certainly we should expect that Democratic and Republican candidates alike will ask  Europe to do more in Afghanistan:   Obama has called for Germany to lift the ban on combat operations  and John McCain has called for NATO members to remove their national caveats.   Yet, there are also differences,  most importantly  in the priority the candidates give to Afghanistan.   Barack Obama has called for a redeployment of U.S. troops to Afghanistan, saying Iraq has distracted from the battle against Al Qaeda, while John McCain disagrees, arguing that the continued troop presence in Iraq is essential for stability in the region.   Europeans were cautious about their ability to do more at this year’s NATO summit in Bucharest, but it is widely thought that it will be harder to say no to a new American president  than to President George W. Bush.   Doing more may not mean more troops, as I’ve heard it suggested that more help on reconstruction would be even more useful than additional European troops.   But it makes you wonder, if we’re not careful, is there a risk  of a transatlantic clash of expectations?  

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WASHINGTON — Listening to the other side of the Atlantic, it can sound like Europeans feel that their fascination with the U.S. election campaign is unrequited. Wolfgang Ischinger recently worried that the European Union “hardly ever appears in the speeches and debates of the candidates.” Is it true that the candidates for the president of the United States are completely uninterested in Europe? No, but you have to know how to read what they say. This post is part of the launch of a   new website at GMF to provide information on the debates going on over here that often don’t seem to make it across the Atlantic. I’ll be blogging regularly here, but the general issue of “where is Europe in the campaign?” seems like the right place to start.

Europeans should hear themselves in one of the most frequent campaign refrains among the candidates €“ the need to”restore America’s standing” in the world. You can see this phrase in the platforms of both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. John McCain says that America “must be a good role model” and “listen to the views and respect the collective will of our democratic allies.” While the candidates certainly also include America’s image in the Middle East in their worries, they are mostly referring to Europe and the decline in the image of the United States after the war in Iraq. We’ve documented this decline in the GMF annual survey, Transatlantic Trends, but what’s perhaps most interesting these days are the signs that the image of the United States may already be improving: a recent BBC poll showed a small but across the board uptick in the percentage of people who view U.S. influence in the world positively. Even more remarkably, German confidence in the United States as a partner increased by 21% to 53% since last year. Could it be, as a German colleague of mine said recently, that the election campaign will do more to improve the image of the United States than any public diplomacy effort could ever hope for?

Stay tuned, and check out our website’s regular feature of key issues in the campaign!

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WASHINGTON — This year’s Transatlantic Trends shows that U.S.-European relations are less and less about how we feel about each other and more and more about what we can do together in the world. Unsurprisingly, Europeans didn’t wake up this past year and fall in love with the current U.S. administration. Those numbers bottomed out in 2004 and have flatlined since then, with only 17% of European who support President Bush’s international policies. What has changed is how Europeans see international threats, with increases in the percentages of Europeans who feel likely to be personally affected by international terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, and large numbers of immigrants or refugees coming into their countries. It’s led to something of a convergence on these issues — in 2005, the gap between the U.S. and Europe on international terrorism was 18%, now it’s 8%, on Islamic fundamentalism, it was 10% in 2005, now it’s 5%.

But Europe hasn’t had any major attacks in the past two years, some observe. Yes, but as this week’s story about the plot on German airports shows, thwarted attacks can have a powerful impact on people’s perceptions as well. Last summer, an uncovered plot on the German rail system woke up the German public to the unfortunate reality that they are not, as they sometimes say, an”island” immune to the threat of global terror since they didn’t participate in Iraq. German Interior Minister Schaueble has been making this case in the German press for months, and it seems to have registered with the public — the largest increases in threat perceptions took place in Germany. To be clear, Germany had the lowest threat perceptions on these issues in 2005 but these increases bring it closer into line with the European averages.

Does this mean we’ll all agree on everything going forward? Of course not. The thwarted attacks have led to a vigorous debate about civil liberties and government powers, a debate that’s been happening on both sides of the Atlantic. But it might be a good start, a foundation for at least seeing the same threats and discussing what to do about them. And our poll numbers support this: even though Europeans continue to dislike President Bush’s international policies, 54% of Europeans who feel the EU should take greater responsibility for dealing with international threats also think the EU should do so in partnership with the United States.

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