US PRESIDENT Barack Obama called for a new era in transatlantic relations on his first official visit to France and Germany yesterday, but warned that the US wanted to be the defence “partner, not patron”, of Europe.
After talks with the French and German leaders ahead of a two-day Nato summit, Mr Obama used a stirring town-hall address to end what he called the “drift” of Bush-era transatlantic relations.
“I have come to renew our partnership, one in which America listens and learns from allies, but where friends and allies bear their share of the burden,” he said.
It was a gentle nudge to European Nato leaders to do more to support the US-led mission in Afghanistan, and an indication that Mr Obama hopes to cash in on his personal popularity on the Continent to win that support.
“America is changing but it cannot be America alone that changes,” he said, proposing a new transatlantic contract: an end to US “arrogance and derision” towards “Europe’s leading role in the world”, in exchange for a reigning in of European “anti-Americanism that is at once casual but can also be insidious”.
In a day that gave new meaning to the term “shuttle diplomacy”, Mr Obama began with talks in France, “our oldest, our first ally”, praising its “extraordinary leadership role” in returning to Nato’s military command after 43 years.
A beaming French president Nicolas Sarkozy said Washington and Paris were “on the same page”, and offered to take a detainee ahead of the closure of the Guantánamo Bay camp. “It feels really good to be able to work with a US president who understands that the world does not boil down simply to American frontiers and borders,” he said.
With customary gusto, Mr Sarkozy added: “That’s a hell of a good piece of news for 2009.”
Mr Obama then headed across the Rhine to Baden-Baden for talks with German chancellor Angela Merkel on Nato’s future strategy in general and on Afghanistan.
He praised France and Germany’s involvement in the Nato mission, noting that neither side had to be “dragged kicking and screaming into Afghanistan”.
“And I understand why both Americans and Germans would be feeling a sense, particularly in the midst of economic crisis, of why are we still there,” he said. “But I and our Nato allies believe strongly that we cannot allow a territory in which people who would kill our citizens with impunity can be permitted to operate.”
Later, they were joined by all Nato leaders for a banquet marking the alliance’s 60th birthday. Dr Merkel expressed optimism that leaders would agree during dinner on a successor to outgoing secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer. But Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking in London yesterday, reiterated concerns about the suitability of the frontrunner, Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, because of his handling of the Muhammad cartoon row in 2007.
