Bush or Kerry: what are the implications for Europe?

Senior advisors to the Bush and Kerry campaigns
have debated the implications on European economies and
politics of a respective Bush or Kerry
Presidency.

Senior advisor to the Bush campaign, Charles R. Black,
and senior advisor to the Kerry campaign, Scott Pastrick,
both working for global Communications consultancy Burson
Marsteller, discussed the impact of a respective Bush or
Kerry Presidency on European economies and politics on 20
September.

There are three huge issues being debated in this
campaign, said Black, the war on terror, the war in Iraq
and the economy specifically the economy defined as the
number of jobs and progress in creating jobs.

Both speakers agreed that although current US
President is 6 point ahead in polls at the moment, the
race will be very closed until the end. Bush’s advisor is
convinced that the “rest of the campaign will a race on
who will control the agenda,” with Kerry focussing on
jobs and the economy and Bush on security. Black
stressed, that if Bush were to be re-elected, he would
continue current policies and highlighted the following
consequences for Europe:

• co-operation with European partners on Iran nuclear
  weapons
• more involvement in Middle East conflict
• a push for free trade and for a successful
  completion of the WTO Doha round of negotiations
• few changes can be expected on competition policy
  but a repeal of the controversial foreign sales
  cooperation law is likely by the end of the year
• EU subsidies for aircrafts will be a hot issue
• no change of policies on the
  environment  

If americans were to elect the democrat contender,
Kerry’s advisor Scott Pastrick, said that Kerry will put
in place a new diplomacy, based on “co-operation not
unilateralism”. He qualified Kerry as being “culturally
sensitive to Europe” and someone that believes in a
“strong Europe”. He pointed out Kerry’s desires to:

• establish strong partnership on fighting terrorism
  and to share decision making for future
  interventions
• shift the tax burden away from the middle class to
  the wealthy and to look at tax credit that are granted
  to offshore investment as a means to stop
  outsourcing
• combine free trade with faire trade by reviewing in
  the first 120 days of its Presidency existing trade
  partnerships to see if tet labour and environmental
  standards.  

Bushs senior adviser Charles R. Black however, stated
he does not believe that policies will really change,
whoever is elected as the Republicans hold the majority
in Senate and congress.