Process of equalisation between Europe, US underway with global rebalancing

A profound process of equalisation is under way between Europe and the United States. It spans economic, foreign policy, political and security issues. And it concerns different approaches to the exercise of global power and influence.

During the first period of the Bush administration, this process has been punctuated by disagreements over adherence to a series of multilateral treaties. The Kyoto Protocol, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Biological Weapons Protocol and the planned global agreement limiting the small arms trade were listed this week by the US Senate Democratic leader, Mr Tom Daschle, as having been abrogated, reducing the US's world leadership role as he sees it.

One of the shrewdest European observers of US policy, the French Foreign Minister, Mr Hubert VΘdrine, told this newspaper last month that such US attitudes, along with sanctions against Iraq and the death penalty, encourage the emergence of a European identity. "The Europeans today are building a European power. Even those who don't want it, even those who if you ask them say, 'no, it's dangerous'. But in practice that's what they're doing."

He was struck by the calm determination with which such agreements to disagree were expressed at the EU Gothenburg summit in June. Indeed, the Swedish EU Presidency was notable for the vigour with which it pursued them on Korea and Kyoto.

Mr VΘdrine acknowledges that the US is a principal beneficiary of globalisation. But he denies globalisation is "the completion of an American plan" (unlike many French commentators). And he notes that its role as a "hyperpower" (a term he has popularised) is constrained by the US's geographical self-sufficiency and a political system perpetually "torn between isolationism and hegemony". Mr VΘdrine has also become associated with an ambition to civilise globalisation by reimposing regulation on it.

That is both a French and an EU task. It will be accomplished, he argues, through the creation of a more multi-polar world and chimes in with the wider sense of alienation from such processes shown up by the series of demonstrations at summit meetings.

Europe enjoys some competitive advantages at regional and global levels as this equalisation proceeds. The EU operates in a multilateral fashion based on the rule of law. Its chosen methods of soft law and governance are more in harmony with a world trying to escape from what Mr Max Kohnstamm describes as the "twin concepts of hegemony and the balance of power" which for so long characterised European politics. That tends to reinforce its willingness to adhere to and develop multilateral treaties as the principal means of global regulation.

In sharp contrast, the Bush administration's approach has been described by its senior State Department official, Mr Richard Haase, as an "α la carte multilateralism". That leaves ample space for people within the administration more hegemonic than he, such as the vice-President, Mr Richard Cheney, and the Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, to develop unilateral power projection through hard military security as the chosen means of reinforcing US hyperpowerdom. There seems to be a constant battle for the soul of the administration along these lines, focusing principally on missile and space defence systems.

As an adherent of the realpolitik tradition of French diplomacy Mr VΘdrine would probably regard the US-EU equalisation as part of a global rebalancing of power after the end of the Cold War. In that case, argues Mr Stanley Hoffmann, the distinguished Harvard scholar of France and Europe, in a review of Mr VΘdrine's recent book, France in an Age of Globalisation, it would seem logical for him to support a stronger and more federal EU than in fact he does. Mr Hoffmann asks: "Can one call for a multi-polar world and yet ... relegate Europe to a diplomatically limited role with 'too many voices and not enough policy'?" That is a dilemma not only for French policy but for all states participating in the EU's debate about its future internal and external roles. It seems certain to intensify during the Bush administration, with which that debate will coincide almost exactly. If equalisation is to be consolidated it may well be necessary to go further on the integration road than many would desire or anticipate.

In the same journal Mr VΘdrine's co-author, the French academic Mr Dominique Mo∩si, makes the point that "the Europe the Bush team knows is the one of the old Bush administration. Largely prisoners of past experience and prejudice, its members have so far failed to recognise the realities of the new Europe".

That new Europe is transcending the dilemma that those with power in Brussels have not yet acquired legitimacy, whereas those with legitimacy in the national capitals now have less power. Mr Mo∩si says it is exemplified by its firms and civil society which challenge the US on its own turf. Europe's capitalism and governmental regulation is more flexible, dynamic and humane, its identity more to do with memory than will.

These may seem excessively abstract reflections; but their relevance will obtrude as the euro is introduced and both the EU and US economies cope with the current downturn. Politically and diplomatically they play in to current arguments over the several treaties mentioned here. In security and military affairs the reorganisation of NATO and development of the EU's Rapid Reaction Force draw them into public discussion. So, too, does the intensifying debate over missile defence, including its impact on Russia and NATO enlargement.

At the same time Mr Mo∩si recognises that the US and Europe "are still united by democratic values and deep common interests". That will mitigate any temptation for them to drift apart more comprehensively than any of the major states, France included, currently intend.

But if that is not to happen it will be necessary for the European side to be more assertive about the mutual benefits of a more equal trans-Atlantic relationship and the desirability of more multilateral methods. That will be particularly important for emerging global governance through a reformed UN structure. Only thus can competing powers be deflected from a competition for hegemony. That this is a political struggle within the US as well as across the Atlantic is shown by the Mr Daschle speech in Washington.