Opening Transatlantic Markets
by Daniel Hamilton and Joseph Quinlan
appeared in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
Nov. 30, 2006
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is reviving talk of a Transatlantic Free Trade Area. As leader of the world’s number one export nation, she is looking to liberalize trade despite the stalemated Doha round. She also wants to reinvigorate transatlantic ties and boost European competitiveness on the eve of Germany’s Presidency of both the European Union and the G8 in January.
Her impulse is right. Doha is floundering and the US and the EU muddle through their annual summits with liberalizing rhetoric and few results. The answer against this backdrop, however, is not another bilateral trade deal but a transatlantic version of the EU’s Single Market. Read More

NATO rapid-reaction force gets final green light
November 29, 2006
RIGA, (Reuters) - NATO declared on Wednesday its long-awaited rapid-reaction force was fully ready to take on missions ranging from high-end combat in far-off troublespots to humanitarian relief.
The NATO Response Force (NRF), brainchild of former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, will field troops from a pool of up to 25,000 troops at a few days' notice and is the flagship of NATO efforts to revamp itself after the Cold War.
The force, announced at a NATO summit in Latvia, will start with troop commitments "very close" to the 25,000 target after last-minute offers of soldiers, helicopters and other equipment from Turkey, the United States, France, Spain and Germany. Read More

NATO to include counter-terrorism in its role
November 23, 2006
LONDON (Reuters) - NATO countries will endorse a plan next week to widen the alliance's role to include counter-terrorism, prevention of cyber attacks and security of natural resources, the Financial Times reported on Friday.
The Financial Times said the plan would be signed by the leaders of the 26-nation alliance who are due to meet in Riga, Latvia on November 28-29.
It said NATO should put a premium on "the ability to deter, disrupt, defend and protect against terrorism, and more particularly to contribute to the protection of the alliance's populations, territory, critical infrastructure and forces". Read More

US in push for NATO ties
November 23, 2006
THE US is pushing for NATO to forge closer links with key Western allies including Australia as the organisation expands its military deployments beyond Europe.
But Canberra is lukewarm about developing any formal association with the group.
Washington wants Australia, Japan and South Korea to become global partners with the 26-member Atlantic alliance, together with two European non-NATO allies - Sweden and Finland.
US President George W. Bush is expected to push the idea at a NATO summit meeting in the Latvian capital of Riga next week as NATO becomes more involved in the struggle against Islamist terrorism.
Australia already has military ties with NATO through its task group in Oruzgan province in Afghanistan, which comes under overall NATO command. Read More

The Future of Europe: The Ties that Bind and Divide
Kurt Volker, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs
November 13, 2006
Europeans love to argue that America knows nothing but hard power, and even does that poorly. They see themselves as the champions of soft power. Americans love to argue that Europeans are unwilling to use force when necessary, and even unwilling to use other means such as sanctions to achieve a goal.
But take a look around: America has massively increased foreign aid (some figures show a tripling), pledged $15 billion to fight AIDS, it is the largest foreign aid donor in Gaza ($468 million in direct assistance this year), and has led the drive to rebuild Afghanistan, to name a few examples. We are the largest investor in research into clean technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Europe, meanwhile, is deploying forces around the globe as we have not seen in over a generation, and for far nobler reasons. France, followed by Italy, is leading the peacekeeping force in Lebanon. Europe is running the force in the Congo and has over 50,000 troops for security missions deployed around the globe. Remember Cote d'Ivoire? Sierra Leone? Bosnia? Europe is leading on those.
The truth is that Americans and Europeans are both using hard and soft power and we are doing so in coordinated fashion, toward common ends. Read More

US to Propose NATO Partnership With South Korea Next Week
November 22, 2006
WASHINGTON (Yonhap) - The United States will propose that South Korea and four other nations be added as partners to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at the group’s summit next week, Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns said Tuesday.
President George W. Bush will suggest establishing a “program of global partners” that would include South Korea, Japan, Australia, Sweden and Finland to have the Atlantic organization reach out to the Pacific, Burns said at a briefing. They are not being asked to join NATO, nor do they seek to, Burns said.
“But we seek a partnership with them so that we can train more intensively, from a military point of view, and grow closer to them because we are deployed with them,” he said. Read More

NATO Parliamentary Assembly releases DECLARATION ON NATO’S RIGA SUMMIT
Quebéc
November 17, 2006
The Riga summit of Alliance Heads of State and Government provides an opportunity for Alliance leaders to reconfirm the continuing importance of NATO as the key transatlantic forum to ensure our collective security. In today's global environment risks and threats to our security are many and diverse. They result from multiple origins: failed or failing states, underdevelopment, bad governance, demographic imbalances, religious radicalization, the resurgence of ideologies hostile to democracy, competition for natural resources and energy, regional instability, transnational organised crime, the spread of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism. NATO's core mission of collective defence must now address these new threats. The Riga Summit should give leadership and direction to this process. Read Full Text

EU and US united in efforts to strengthen economic integration and boost jobs, growth and competitiveness
November 10, 2006
The US Government hosted the second informal US-EU economic ministerial meeting to discuss transatlantic economic integration and shared economic challenges on 9 November. European Union Commission Vice President Verheugen and Finnish Minister for Trade and Industry Mauri Pekkarinen met Commerce Secretary Carlos M. Gutierrez and Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman to review joint progress , in the most significant areas of the transatlantic economy, including innovation, intellectual property rights (IPR), and regulatory cooperation.
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