Obama to Rally Europeans on Democracy Movements
U.S. President Barack Obama
Joshua Roberts/Pool via Bloomberg
U.S. President Barack Obama.
U.S. President Barack Obama. Photographer: Joshua Roberts/Pool via Bloomberg
President Barack Obama arrived in Europe today seeking more resources to promote and support the pro-democracy movements in the Middle East and North Africa that have supplanted the economy at the top of his international agenda.
The six-day trip is anchored by Obama’s address to U.K.’s Parliament on May 25 in which the president aims to reaffirm and refine the trans-Atlantic alliance amid economic and political upheaval.
The president’s remarks to Parliament will try to “reframe” the U.S-European relationship, said Heather Conley, director of the Europe Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
“The irrational exuberance of Europe when President Obama was inaugurated has now met, two and a half years later, with a daunting list of domestic challenges, international challenges, and we have to understand how this relationship is going to work within that complexity,” Conley said at a briefing last week.
Obama began in Ireland where he will visit the birthplace of his great-great-great-grandfather in Moneygall, a town with a population of about 300. He signed a guest book and planted a tree at Irish President Mary McAleese’s residence. Obama plans to deliver remarks at College Green at Trinity College in Dublin and meet with Prime Minister Enda Kenny. He also will attend a meeting of leaders from the Group of Eight nations in France at which turmoil in the Middle East and North Africa will be a prime topic.
Core Alliance
“This is a very important trip for the president to reaffirm our core alliances in the world,” Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser, told reporters in a May 20 preview of the president’s trip. Europe and the U.S. are “bound by a set of values” that have resonance “at a time when we see people reaching for those values around the world,” he said.
A goal of the G-8 summit in Deauville, France, on May 26-27 will be an expected agreement drawing from the president’s address last week that framed U.S. policy in the wake of pro- democracy movements sweeping through the region, said Michael Froman, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for international economic affairs. The president will ask G-8 member countries to support “financial stabilization, modernization and reform of the economies in the region,” he said.
Obama has proposed $2 billion in U.S. assistance for Egypt, $1 billion in loan guarantees through the Overseas Private Investment Corp. and cancellation of $1 billion in debt, about a third of what Egypt owes the U.S. The administration plans to work with Congress to create “enterprise funds” to invest in Tunisia and Egypt, modeled on similar funds that supported democratic transitions in Eastern Europe, Obama said on May 19.
International Help
The U.S. is asking the World Bank and International Monetary Fund to present a plan at the G-8 summit for what needs to be done to stabilize the economies of Egypt and Tunisia, Obama said. He also wants the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development to refocus on aiding the region and for the U.S. and European Union promote trade.
The U.S. pledge and a promise of $4 billion in aid from Saudi Arabia helped Egypt’s shares gain the most in almost two months. The EGX 30 Index (EGX30) climbed 3 percent, the most since March 29, to 5,405.52 at the 2:30 p.m. close in Cairo. The gauge has declined 24 percent so far this year.
Rhodes said other topics on Obama’s agenda include the war in Afghanistan, trade, the NATO-led military campaign in Libya and nuclear power security in the wake of an earthquake and tsunami in Japan that set off the worst nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi atomic power plant.
Sovereign Debt
While not a major focus of the trip, the president would be remiss not to discuss the “extraordinary and profound impact” of the sovereign debt crisis in Europe, Conley said.
Ireland received an 85 billion-euro ($121 billion) bailout in November, led by the European Union and International Monetary Fund, making it the second euro-region nation to get aid after Greece in May 2010. In the U.K., Prime Minister David Cameron’s coalition government has embarked on the deepest public spending reductions since World War II as he seeks to reduce a fiscal deficit of almost 10 percent of gross domestic product.
The president will arrive tomorrow in London, where he will be greeted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and meet with Cameron followed by a state dinner at the palace. The next day Obama will deliver a speech to both houses of Parliament in Westminster Hall, the first time a U.S. president has delivered such a speech there.
Leader Meetings
While at the G-8 summit, the president plans separate meetings with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Japanese prime Minister Naoto Kan, Rhodes said.
The pro-democracy movements in the Middle East and North Africa also will come up as Obama wraps up his trip with his first visit to Poland.
Poland’s Ambassador to the U.S. Robert Kupiecki told reporters at a May 20 briefing that Poland, a former Soviet bloc country that went through a democratic transition of its own, is uniquely able to help guide changes in the Middle East and North Africa. He said while in Poland Obama will meet with former Polish President Lech Walesa, who visited Tunisia and met with members of the interim legislative body.
In meetings with Poland’s President Bronislaw Komorowski and Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Obama also will discuss troop commitments in Afghanistan, defense cooperation, shale gas development in the country and Poland’s concerns about a program that doesn’t allow Polish citizens to visit the U.S. without a visa.
To contact the reporter on this story: Kate Andersen Brower in Dublin at kandersen7@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net
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