Volume 16 Number 49 Thursday, December 16, 1999 Page 2025 ISSN 1523-2816 Europe
European Union
U.S., EU Summit Meeting on Dec. 15 Postponed Because of Mideast Peace Talks
The summit meeting between the United States and the European Union originally scheduled to be held in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 15 has been postponed until later in the week, officials said Dec. 10.
John B. Richardson, acting head of the European Commission delegation, said that the United States had asked the EU to reschedule the meeting because of the demands likely to be associated with the Israeli-Syrian peace talks that will be held in Washington, D.C., at the same time.
Officials said the summit will now be held Dec. 17.
Richardson said that the focus of the meeting was still likely to be the aftermath of the failed ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization, which was held in Seattle Nov. 30-Dec. 3 (16 ITR 1990, 12/9/99).
David L. Aaron, undersecretary of commerce for international trade, said earlier in the week of Dec. 6 that the outcome of the Seattle meeting, as well as a range of bilateral issues, will be discussed at the U.S.-EU summit meeting.
"But at this stage," he said, "I don't see any particular conclusions that may emerge."
Richardson, speaking with a small group of reporters, said that discussions at the U.S.-EU summit will focus, in particular, on how the two sides can move in the next few months to rebuild the political consensus for trade liberalization in the wake of the Seattle conference.
He said that, in his view, the challenge will be particularly big in the United States.
"My own feeling is that the readiness to embrace multilateral solutions to international problems is declining in the U.S.," he said, suggesting that the phenomenon was associated to some extent with the long period of unbroken economic growth in this country, "which creates in American minds a feeling of self-confidence, of dominance, and of lessening necessity to cooperate with others."
"I'm a little pessimistic about how quickly we can reconstruct that consensus [for further trade liberalization] in the United States," he said, "as long as the boom continues."
By Gary G. Yerkey
Copyright c 1999 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C.:
