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EUROPE: No Tearful Farewell for Bush

Analysis by David Cronin

BRUSSELS, Jun 6 2008 (IPS) - It is a safe bet that there will be no mass shedding of tears when U.S. President George W. Bush visits Slovenia to attend the final summit of his presidency between the European Union and the United States Jun. 10.

During his two terms in the White House, trans-Atlantic relations proved so divisive for Europe that Donald Rumsfeld, the former defence secretary, famously characterised the continent as being split between 'old' and 'new'. The former, according to Rumsfeld, opposed the war against Iraq; the latter approved of it.

Still, there appears to be a determination on both sides that Bush's swansong in Slovenia should not be marred by disharmony. Some contentious issues will be discussed: an 11-year-old EU ban on U.S. poultry imports, and the fact that the U.S. allows citizens of some EU states but not others to enter its territory without a visa. More sensitive topics, especially those relating to civil and political rights, look set to be avoided, however.

Dimitrios Papadimoulis, a Greek left-wing member of the European Parliament, has urged the EU side to press Washington for the closure of Guantanamo Bay, the controversial prison camp in Cuba, and to demand an end to the secretive torture, detention and kidnapping programme run by the Central Intelligence Agency (allegedly with the cooperation of many European governments).

"The European Parliament wants Guantanamo closed down," he said in a debate with representatives of EU governments and the European Commission. "We also want secret prisons closed down. Are you going to say something about that to the Americans?"

Neither the Commission nor the government of Slovenia, the current holder of the EU's rotating presidency, answered his question.

Emilou MacLean, a staff attorney with the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York, suggested that the imminent departure from office of Bush offers no pretext for European reticence on Guantanamo. In a new report, the CCR states that interrogators from a number of countries have been granted access to the prison camp by the U.S., where they have threatened detainees. The interrogators hailed from China, Uzbekistan, Libya, Jordan, Tunisia and Tajikistan – all of which have been criticised for human rights abuses by the U.S. State Department.

Some 50 detainees are believed to face grave risks to their personal safety if they are returned home. Human rights activists have asked European governments to provide shelter to many of these detainees. Some of them have already been cleared for release but remain in custody.

"It is critical that the international community speaks loudly and clearly," MacLean added. "Actions, in addition to words, are needed to close Guantanamo. We're at a critical juncture right now at the end of a political cycle, and hopefully there is an opportunity to right the wrongs that have been created. But that is only going to happen through pro-active deeds."

Climate change – a major irritant in EU-U.S. ties – will feature on the agenda in Ljubljana.

Although the U.S. is the only major industrialised country to have rejected the Kyoto protocol on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, the European side is hoping to convince it to be more constructive in efforts to find a successor to Kyoto. Such efforts are scheduled to culminate in an agreement at a major conference in Copenhagen next year.

By that time, either John McCain or Barack Obama will have had ample time to settle into the White House. Both have indicated that they regard climate change as an urgent problem, unlike Bush who made his living in the oil industry before entering politics full-time.

Stephan Singer, a climate change campaigner with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), is not expecting any concrete results to emerge from the discussions on the environment during next week's summit.

"The EU would be well advised not to put too much resources into negotiating with a dying administration," he said. "The real debates will take place once there is a new president in the White House."

Singer believes that the EU has been "lucky" in a sense that Bush has not been receptive to calls for swingeing cuts in the emissions of carbon dioxide and other substances blamed by scientists for heating the earth's atmosphere. The lack of commitment to the environment in Washington has allowed the EU become a "self-proclaimed leader" in global efforts against climate change, he added.

"I would be happy if the U.S. shows real leadership and embarrasses the EU into taking a stronger position," he said. "That would be great."

Without doubt, much of the conversations taking place on the margins of the summit will focus on the U.S. presidential election, slated for November.

Timothy Garton Ash, professor of European studies at Britain's Oxford University, said this week that the "working assumption" in this continent is that both McCain and Obama would be "more multilateral" than the frequently isolationist Bush administration.

Judging by his statements to date, Obama could be "a hell of a lot more multilateral," the professor added, and his election "would be greeted with an extraordinary welcome" in Europe.