The EU External Affairs Commissioner, Chris Patten, has warned that the United States is drifting dangerously towards a "absolutist and simplistic" view of the world.
In an interview in today's edition of The Guardiannewspaper, he said Europeans should speak up and stop Washington from going into what he termed "unilateralist overdrive."
He called Bush's description of Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an axis of evil "unhelpful", and added: "I find it hard to believe that's a thought through policy."
Patten said the EU's policy of "constructive engagement" with Iranian moderates and North Korea was much more likely to bring results than a US policy which so far consists of "more rhetoric than substance."
He also said there was no way that European states could raise defense spending by 14 percent so as to match the 48 billion dollar increase in US military expenditures proposed by Bush last month.
"Now this is a different perception of the world, and it's different from what America's been renowned for," Patten said.
"No one could regard America as anything but the leading multilateralist of the 1940s and 1950s, creating institutions of governance which have made the world more prosperous and more stable," he said. AFP