AMBASSADOR'S CORNER
WEEKLY
MESSAGE FROM AMBASSADOR JOHN BRUTON
September 21, 2005
Last week the
European Union Ambassadors from all over the
world were back in Brussels for our Annual
Seminar. It brought together over 130 EU
Ambassadors from places as diverse as Beijing in
China and Banjul in Gambia. Most diplomatic
services have seminars like this to ensure that
their representatives abroad are fully in touch
with thinking at home.
Our seminar was especially interesting.
President Barroso (pictured below, left) of
the European Commission stressed that the
internal policies pursued by States are
increasingly affecting the way people live in
other States. Everything has become globalized,
so no one can make decisions without taking
account of how those decisions will affect
others. The importance of the European Union is
growing precisely because it provides a means
for countries inside and outside Europe to
control the effect that policies in one country
have on life in another.
Voters in all European Union countries want
economic growth, jobs and personal security and
the European Union must show that it can help
people achieve this.
He said that his immediate priorities included
the freeing up of the Internal European Market
for services (something that could create up to
600,000 additional jobs).
EU
External Relations Commissioner
Ferrero-Waldner said that the framing of
European Union Foreign Policy must be done on
the basis of full partnership with the citizens
of all of the European countries.
EU
Trade Commissioner
Peter Mandelson said that reaching a good
outcome at the
conference on world trade in Hong Kong in
December was very important. We have 12 weeks to
go and much work to do. He stressed that he had
sought his agreement with
China on textiles exports to Europe so as to
allow some breathing space to EU industry and to
developing country textile exporters who had
become dependent on the European market.
EU
Development &
Humanitarian Aid Commissioner
Louis Michel said that his aim was to
humanize globalization. The European Union gives
55% of all the development aid given in the
entire world. He stressed the importance of
pre-positioning stocks of medicines and other
supplies in different parts of the world to be
used in the case of natural disasters. He said
that it was important that developing countries
make a contribution to good governance. Some
very poor countries only charge an income tax
rate of 14% on their citizens who have high
incomes and yet look for help from other
countries where the tax rate is much higher.
Javier Solana, the Secretary General of the
European Council and EU Common Foreign &
Security Policy High Representative, stressed
the importance of the fact that all the 25
countries of the European Union now have a
formally agreed
European Security Strategy. This was the
basis of recent European Union foreign policy
successes, like the peace agreement in
Aceh.
Eneko Landaburu, Director General for
External Relations of the European Commission
(pictured below, right), said that we can gain
much greater support from our citizens for our
foreign policy work when we can show them that
it reduces risks that might affect them in their
own personal lives, e.g., diseases spread from
one country to another, threats to the safety of
air travel and the spread of weapons of mass
destruction.
During my visit to Brussels, I also had the
opportunity of meeting with old friends I had
worked with in the past, such as the Irish
Ambassador to the European Union, Bobby McDonagh;
European Parliament Member Iñigo Mendez de
Vigo; President of the European Peoples Party
Wilfried Martens; my predecessor here in
Washington Günter Burghardt and Kevin Leydon of
the European Parliament.
Please send me your
comments
about this or any of my weekly messages, or
other EU matters. I look forward to hearing
from you!
John Bruton
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José Manuel Barroso |
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Eneko Landaburu |
