European Commission President José Manuel Barroso: Remarks Following Meeting with US President George W. Bush

The White House, January 8, 2007

"It was, indeed, a pleasure to meet again, President Bush. We have now these very regular meetings. And it's always a great occasion to exchange views on such important subjects.

"In fact, we have considered bilateral and global issues. On bilateral, I underlined the importance we give to further - to make go further, go faster, to go deeper in our economic transatlantic partnership. This is the most important economic relation in the world, the relation between the United States of America and the European Union. And we believe we can achieve more if we look at it in a comprehensive manner. And I hope that now there will be some concrete work so that in our regular institutional summit between the European Union and the United States we can achieve some more complete results.

"Of course, the most crucial factor is the successful negotiations for Doha. Doha is not just about trade, it's also about development, it's about having a multilateral approach to trade. There is now the defining moment. We are really at defining moment, and we had a very good exchange, and we gave instructions to all negotiators to come with a solution as soon as possible. And of course it is important to engage also others, because this is a real global agreement that we are trying to build. And this will be a very important signal for the world community if we show that it is possible to have a global approach to trade and development.

"Another global issue, but where United States and Europe have a very good - and we hope to improve relation and dialogue - is precisely energy and climate. When we speak about climate change, it's not just about the environment - of course environment is crucially important - but it is also about global security, it's also about economic development and sustainability.

"And so we are hoping to deepen our dialogue on climate change, on technologies, on curbing emissions, on progress, in terms of energy efficiency, and in security. Of course the key is diversification - diversification in all aspects, and we believe the work going on between our respective experts is a good signal of the commitment of our joint commitment to fight climate change and also to have a more common approach to the problems of global security regarding energy.

"We will, of course, consider other issues in the working lunch we're going to have. President Bush just spoke about Darfur. I've been in Darfur recently. I can tell you that it's really a tragedy, what's going on, and we cannot accept that tragedy going on without the united response of the international community.

"So, once again, it was a pleasure meeting President Bush in the White House. I'm very much looking forward to other occasions where we can show to the world that this relation, the relation between Europe and the United States of America is, indeed, more important than ever."

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