American and European officials celebrated several milestones in U.S.-European Union relations and EU history at a reception at the State Department May 6. The occasion was the 50th anniversary of the first European Commission presence in Washington and the May 1 enlargement of the European Union from 15 to 25 members. Secretary of State Colin Powell welcomed the assembled guests and said the United States claimed the right to celebrate along with its European friends as a result of its long and strong support for the project of European integration. "American support ... from its very beginning, has been critical to the European Union's capacity to form, to succeed, and now to expand," Powell said. "Every President from Harry Truman to George Bush has supported Europe's grand project, and rightly so." He added that "no serious observer would discount the broad, shaping role the United States has played in Europe these last five decades, in both the security and the economic spheres. No serious observer could imagine the EU's May 1 expansion except for the triumph of liberty in the Cold War. And no serious observer could begin to account for that triumph without reference to the role of the United States." Powell said all the recent celebratory events actually represented "something much broader, and much more significant." In addition to celebrating "alliances of the heart -- within Europe, and between Europe and America," he said, we are celebrating "our confidence in the future, not just in Europe and not just in the Transatlantic world -- but in the whole world. Above all we are celebrating the triumph of hope." Powell said that with the admission of 10 new EU members -- Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia -- "we're now past the tipping point" of a Europe "whole, free and at peace." "We can almost taste it, and so can the other European peoples who long to be part of it," he said. "The EU, we hope, is not yet finished expanding." Representing the EU at the reception was Guenter Burghardt, head of the European Commission delegation to the United States. Burghardt said none of the historic events being commemorated "could have been achieved without the active economic, political, and institutional support of the United States." He also said that although the transatlantic partnership recently experienced a period of "considerable turmoil," any differences "are clearly outweighed by what unites us." "However asymmetric the transatlantic partnership may still appear for some time," he said, "it is our common resolve and the complementarity of our tool boxes which make both the United States and the European Union stronger and more capable to deal with today's challenges." As evidence of this, Burghardt noted, the upcoming EU-U.S. summit in Dublin in June will highlight joint efforts "in many important areas, such as homeland security and the fight against international terrorism." The May 6 reception took place in the Benjamin Franklin room at the State Department, and Secretary Powell recalled the words of that early American diplomat, who urged unity among the American colonies as they headed down the path toward independence. He said that same sense of cohesion is what makes it possible for America and Europe to overcome any challenge. "We do agree on our common purpose in advancing human dignity, and we agree on our essential means to do it: freedom, freedom under the rule of law," Powell said. "With so much essential in common, posterity will not forgive us if we ignore Mr. Franklin's advice. We won't ignore his advice, I'm sure, and so I'm prepared to predict that we're bound to celebrate our common achievements together again, many times, stretched long into the future." |
