Remarks on the Occasion of the 50th
Anniversary of the First European Commission Presence in Washington and
the Historic Enlargement of the European Union
Ambassador Dr.
Günter
Burghardt
Head of the European Commission Delegation to the United States
The Benjamin Franklin Room
The United States Department of State
6 May 2004
Mr. Secretary, Ladies and Gentlemen, dear friends and
colleagues, let me first of all thank
Secretary Powell for his remarks and
Undersecretary Larson for hosting today’s celebration. It is a substantial
honor that we greatly appreciate, and it is entirely in keeping with the
long tradition of American support for European integration which
Secretary Powell has just so eloquently confirmed. I will do my best to
carry my share of the rhetorical load, even though I know it is a daunting
task to follow the Secretary. I am reassured, however, by the fact that we
have such a meeting of minds in underlining both what the
transatlantic partnership has achieved and the promise it holds
for the future.
I also fully agree with the Secretary that Benjamin Franklin is a source
of a lot of good advice, which he offered not only to Americans but also
to Europeans. As usual he was well ahead of his time – in this case by two
centuries – when following the Philadelphia Convention he suggested to a
European friend that, “Europe form a Federal Union of all its different
states and kingdoms.” So it is indeed fitting to meet today in this
magnificent room bearing his name.
As the Secretary noted, we celebrate the happy coincidence of several
closely linked events. First, this year’s “Schuman
Day” marks the 54th Anniversary of the Schuman Declaration
which launched the European Coal and Steel Community as a first step on
the long road of European integration. Second, with our American friends
and our
new EU colleagues we celebrated the enlargement to a Europe whole
and free for which May 9, 1950 and the historic reconciliation between
France and Germany broke the ground. And third, it is
50 years ago that
Jean Monnet established an information office in Washington that has grown
in time to today’s fully-fledged diplomatic mission.
As we recognize these milestones in the European project, we also honor
the transatlantic partnership. None of the events we commemorate today
could have been achieved without the active support of the United States.
From the beginning, generations of great secretaries from George Marshall,
Dean Acheson and John Foster Dulles to Madeleine Albright and Secretary
Powell guided that support. There is therefore no better place to
celebrate the unification of Europe with its transatlantic dimension than
the US Department of State.
In August 1952, the United States was the first country to recognize the
European Coal and Steel Community, when then-Secretary of State Dean
Acheson sent a diplomatic dispatch on behalf of President Truman to Jean Monnet, in his very first day on the job as
president of the Community’s
High Authority, the forerunner to the European Commission. Acheson’s
telegram included the following statement:
“It is the intention of the United States to give the Coal and Steel
Community the strong support that its importance to the political and
economic unification of Europe warrants…The six-nation Coal and Steel
Community represents the first major step toward the unification of
Europe.”
One year later, the United States was the first country to establish a
fully-fledged embassy to the Community. In designating David Bruce as the
first Ambassador, Secretary Dulles and President Eisenhower made clear the
importance they attached to this assignment. Bruce had previously served
as US Ambassador to France and would subsequently act as Ambassador to
West Germany and to the United Kingdom – a kind of diplomatic trifecta. My
colleague Rock Schnabel was able to celebrate the
50th anniversary
celebration of that event last year in Brussels.
The almost daily correspondence between David Bruce and Washington shows
that his political commentary and policy guidance were followed with
active interest. Bruce did not only help to secure support for getting the
ECSC up and running. His telegrams showed deep understanding and strong
support for the next steps under negotiation: a European Defense Community
and a European Political Community, two projects which hélas proved
premature at the time. Both projects had unreserved US support. Their
failure was the biggest single backlash in the integration process.
To counter Washington’s disappointment was the ultimate reason for Jean
Monnet to establish the Community’s first external presence in this
capital 50 years ago. His confidence in Americans was such that the first
Community "envoy" to the United States was George Ball, an American lawyer
and partner in a prestigious Washington law firm. The intimate friendship
between Ball and Monnet was one of those rare blessings of history. Ball
quickly established an information office occupying two rooms near his own
office on 15th Street, Northwest, with an annual budget of $41,000.
With the help of another American, Leonard Tennyson, Ball supervised the
drafting of an information strategy for the Community in the United
States. One summary paragraph deserves a full reading:
“To the great mass of Americans the Community remains little known and
little understood. Among more informed circles earlier assumptions that it
was a cartel, was dirigiste, or was merely another impotent international
organization, are gradually being corrected. Some influential Americans are
coming to recognize it as a pioneer achievement in European federalism, as
a strong force for freedom and progress in the Western world. However, as
the symbol of progress towards unification, the Community has suffered in
American opinion by what have appeared to Americans as delays and reverses
in the unifying process. The full appreciation of the Community as the
symbol of unification must await some further major step.”
When Ball later became an Undersecretary of State in the Kennedy
Administration, he was instrumental in advising the young president on the
new Europe. Ball’s influence is most evident in Kennedy’s famous speech on
the fourth of July, 1962, in Philadelphia’s Independence Hall when he
called for a "Declaration of Interdependence" and a true partnership of
equals between America and Europe.
I trust we can all agree that the ensuing 40 years have brought a
number of major steps in the development of Europe, including the
completion of the single market, the launch of the
euro, and the successive 6 enlargements to today’s EU
25. Next month a draft
European constitutional treaty will most likely be agreed upon under the
able guidance of the
Irish Presidency. Each of these accomplishments,
together with the emerging EU
Common Foreign and Security Policy and the
new
Security Strategy, have made the Union a more relevant partner to the
US.
Those developments at the EU level went hand in hand with consolidating
the notion of a transatlantic partnership. Together, Europe and America
won the Cold War, based on the attractiveness of the West European model
and American strength and resolve.
And, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the opening of the Iron Curtain
and the end of the Soviet Union we successfully met the challenge of a
democratic Europe whole and free. We together delivered on the November 9,
1989 agenda while also adjusting our transatlantic priorities to a new
geopolitical environment. In 1990, the European Community and the United
States agreed on a
Transatlantic Declaration. This document established
the groundwork for the
New Transatlantic Agenda, agreed in 1995, providing
the mechanisms to address bilateral, regional and global issues,
establishing closer ties between our legislatures and between the various
stakeholders in our societies.
Admittedly, the transatlantic partnership has recently experienced a
period of considerable turbulence. Yet, any differences we might have are
so obviously outweighed by what unites us.
However asymmetric the transatlantic partnership may still appear for some
time, it is our common resolve and the complementarity of our tool boxes
which make both the United States and the European Union stronger when
they do act together – and less effective when they do not.
Looking ahead, let us take inspiration from the achievements of the
Monnets and the Achesons, those “present at the creation,” as much as from
the wisdom of Secretary Powell’s famous thirteen rules. The first rule, to
be applied when we disagree, is, “It ain’t as bad as you think. It will
look better in the morning.” The final rule, crucial as we plan for the
future, is, “Optimism is a force multiplier.”
I am optimistic that the upcoming
EU-US summit meeting in Ireland will
highlight the impressively broad range of our common agenda in so many
important areas, such as homeland security and the fight against
international
terrorism. It might also set the stage for a more profound
reassessment of our transatlantic agenda in the course of 2005 on which a
next Administration in Washington and the incoming Commission in Brussels
will wish to put their mark.
I could personally think of several ambitious projects in this regard.
These could include giving our economic partnership a strong fresh
impetus and an effort to reconcile our respective security strategies.
Certainly this will benefit our work together in such critical areas as
the
Middle East. Just as important as the substance of our future agenda
will be maintaining the spirit of cooperation and the trust in a
relationship that has so successfully shaped history during the past half
century.
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me close with a bold prediction: those who will
gather in this room to commemorate Benjamin Franklin’s 300th birthday in
January 2006 might have in their midst a European Union envoy who, under
the constitutional treaty, will serve one EU foreign minister and assume
the combined responsibilities I today share with my Irish colleague,
acting on behalf of the EU Council Presidency. I would like to take the
opportunity to thank very warmly Ambassador Fahey for the excellent
cooperation during the present historic 6 months.
I also wish to thank my staff from the Delegation for their dedicated work
– they will see a new chapter in the history of this Delegation begin in a
not so distant future – as well as
Dan Hamilton and the
Washington EU
Center for their efforts today and throughout the year. Finally, I thank
all my European and American colleagues and friends for joining us today.
Let us share a toast on the next 50 years of EU/US partnership.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, Benjamin
Franklin Room, US Department of State, May 6, 2004:
"The United States should not
claim too much credit for the European Union's accomplishments because EU
expansion is, above all, a European achievement. And I know that it took
an enormous amount of work by all hands to bring it about...What we're
really celebrating are alliances of the heart, both within Europe and
between Europe and America. We're celebrating aspects of a common
civilization, one whose roots go back millennia, whose expressions are
gloriously diverse, yet whose deepest principles are universal. We are
celebrating our confidence in the future, not just in Europe and not just
in the transatlantic world but in the whole world."
