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On four successive days, EU leaders will meet US President Barack Obama in three different fora held in four European cities. External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner today (16 March) described this as "a good overlap," because Washington and Brussels have a busy agenda.
G20 leaders will meet in London on 2 April, as the UK is chairing the Group of Twenty in 2009. In very broad terms, the G20 summit should lay the foundations to move beyond the economic crisis to a sustainable recovery. It will be chaired by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
A NATO summit will be held on 3–4 April 2009 in Baden-Baden and Kehl, Germany, and in Strasbourg, France. The meetings will be chaired by NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, and hosted by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. A working dinner will be held on the evening of 3 April at the Kurhaus Casino in Baden-Baden.
On 5 April, Czech Prime Minister and holder of the rotating EU presidency Mirek Topolánek will chair an EU-US summit with the heads of state and government of all 27 EU members. Obama is also set to meet the Czech prime minister for bilateral discussions, scheduled for the evening of 4 April.
Ferrero-Waldner admitted that there could be some overlap in the busy transatlantic relationship, as some issues are expected to be discussed at different fora between EU leaders and the US president. But she said this is "good" and "we should be happy about it".
"The G20 and the NATO summits, although some EU leaders are there, are not the same as a European Union Council. Yes, sometimes there is an overlap, for example for finding solutions to the global economic and financial crisis. But for climate change and energy security, or the civilian component of interaction in Afghanistan, this has to be discussed with us, and the Commission has a very strong role," the commissioner said.
Ferrero-Waldner added that the Middle East is another issue that is "always discussed with us," hailing recent US openness to contact with Syria, which she said is a "key" factor for Brussels.
Recalling recent visits to Brussels by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (EurActiv 06/03/09) and Vice-President Joe Biden (EurActiv 12/03/09), she said there is indeed a "new opportunity" in transatlantic relations, describing the Prague summit on 5 April as "a very important platform to reap these opportunities".
Ferrero-Waldner stressed the significance of the Prague summit not only for its important agenda, as she saw it, but for the symbolic choice of the Obama administration to hold its first US-EU summit in an Eastern European country.
"I think it's a great symbolic gesture that President Obama is going to Prague. This is a smaller or medium-sized country that was liberated only twenty years ago. I'm sure this is a political gesture he wants to make," Ferrero-Waldner said.
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