giorgiob8
07-15-2004, 07:44 PM
Vision of U.S. and Europe
as adversaries is misguided
By Carlos Alberto Montaner
Europe and the United States are at loggerheads. That's not good. And because it's not good, the International Foundation for Freedom, presided by Mario Vargas Llosa, decided to hold the First Atlantic Forum to analyze the crisis.
Present at this Madrid meeting were, among others, former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, the French thinker Jean Francois Revel, Italian political scientist Giovanni Sartori and Pedro Solbes, deputy prime minister and czar of the Spanish economy. The United States' view was incarnated by Ambassador Curtis Winsor.
My task was to look into the phony arguments and lies that poison the trade relations between the two large world blocs.
The United States' relative economic dynamism, contrasted with the slower development of Europe's, has sparked an absurd debate that is dominated by ideological prejudice: Presumably, the United States is ruled by a mean and heartless market that excludes the alienated, while a warm and inclusive concern about the human being prevails in Europe.
What's lamentable about this dichotomy is that it starts from a false antagonism. To pit the United States against Europe makes no sense. The United States and Europe are part of the same cultural and economic space, which is rooted in the same Hellenic and Judeo-Christian origin.
It is true that shades of difference exist between the Old Europe and the trans-Atlantic Europe, but that is also true within Europe itself, where England, Ireland and the Netherlands certainly hew closer to the United States' vision than to the visions of Spain and Italy, two of the countries most dominated by the statist tradition.
To these differences many Europeans add a wrong, hostile conception in the field of economic competition. They believe that the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas is an anti-European operation. Others view the euro as a weapon against the dollar.
The truth is that Europe would clearly benefit from the existence, on the other side of the Atlantic, of a huge market extending from Canada to Argentina. How prejudicial can an Italian automobile maker or a Spanish banker be to the existence of an open market where it's possible to set up a factory or a subsidiary in Buenos Aires and operate all the way to Ottawa?
Isn't it evident that U.S. entrepreneurs generally perceive the European Union and the euro as a simpler, more secure, more economical, more efficient and more practical way to conduct commercial and financial transactions?
In a globalized world, we all benefit from others' triumphs and are harmed by others' failures. Who benefits from Japan's economic stagnation? What happens in Europe when the U.S. economy enters a recessive phase or vice versa
There is nothing wrong or perverse in the way Americans shade their public and private activities in accordance with the values that prevail in their society, while the Europeans essay partially different methods to organize their coexistence and the production of goods and services.
What's truly important is to maintain the channels of communication open, so experience may perfect our societies on both sides of the Atlantic.
It is neither intelligent nor sensible for politicians like Chirac to turn to Brazil and demagogically invoke their mutual Latin roots to try to pit the Brazilians against the Anglo-Saxon Americans, as if the Brazilians could not maintain close trade relations with both sides. That, for example, has been done by the Chileans, who wisely signed accords with both sides, convinced that rather than choose between Europe and the United States it's best to link up firmly with both, plus Japan and other successful Asian countries.
We must flee, as if from the Devil, from the adversary vision of the United States and Europe that some people cultivate. If the world today has a real hope to move collectively toward democracy and prosperity, it is because for the past 60 years, since the end of World War II, there has been a clear alliance among almost all the nations of the West.
To endanger those links is the worst disservice that could be rendered to humanity and very especially to its poorest and most backward segments.
as adversaries is misguided
By Carlos Alberto Montaner
Europe and the United States are at loggerheads. That's not good. And because it's not good, the International Foundation for Freedom, presided by Mario Vargas Llosa, decided to hold the First Atlantic Forum to analyze the crisis.
Present at this Madrid meeting were, among others, former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, the French thinker Jean Francois Revel, Italian political scientist Giovanni Sartori and Pedro Solbes, deputy prime minister and czar of the Spanish economy. The United States' view was incarnated by Ambassador Curtis Winsor.
My task was to look into the phony arguments and lies that poison the trade relations between the two large world blocs.
The United States' relative economic dynamism, contrasted with the slower development of Europe's, has sparked an absurd debate that is dominated by ideological prejudice: Presumably, the United States is ruled by a mean and heartless market that excludes the alienated, while a warm and inclusive concern about the human being prevails in Europe.
What's lamentable about this dichotomy is that it starts from a false antagonism. To pit the United States against Europe makes no sense. The United States and Europe are part of the same cultural and economic space, which is rooted in the same Hellenic and Judeo-Christian origin.
It is true that shades of difference exist between the Old Europe and the trans-Atlantic Europe, but that is also true within Europe itself, where England, Ireland and the Netherlands certainly hew closer to the United States' vision than to the visions of Spain and Italy, two of the countries most dominated by the statist tradition.
To these differences many Europeans add a wrong, hostile conception in the field of economic competition. They believe that the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas is an anti-European operation. Others view the euro as a weapon against the dollar.
The truth is that Europe would clearly benefit from the existence, on the other side of the Atlantic, of a huge market extending from Canada to Argentina. How prejudicial can an Italian automobile maker or a Spanish banker be to the existence of an open market where it's possible to set up a factory or a subsidiary in Buenos Aires and operate all the way to Ottawa?
Isn't it evident that U.S. entrepreneurs generally perceive the European Union and the euro as a simpler, more secure, more economical, more efficient and more practical way to conduct commercial and financial transactions?
In a globalized world, we all benefit from others' triumphs and are harmed by others' failures. Who benefits from Japan's economic stagnation? What happens in Europe when the U.S. economy enters a recessive phase or vice versa
There is nothing wrong or perverse in the way Americans shade their public and private activities in accordance with the values that prevail in their society, while the Europeans essay partially different methods to organize their coexistence and the production of goods and services.
What's truly important is to maintain the channels of communication open, so experience may perfect our societies on both sides of the Atlantic.
It is neither intelligent nor sensible for politicians like Chirac to turn to Brazil and demagogically invoke their mutual Latin roots to try to pit the Brazilians against the Anglo-Saxon Americans, as if the Brazilians could not maintain close trade relations with both sides. That, for example, has been done by the Chileans, who wisely signed accords with both sides, convinced that rather than choose between Europe and the United States it's best to link up firmly with both, plus Japan and other successful Asian countries.
We must flee, as if from the Devil, from the adversary vision of the United States and Europe that some people cultivate. If the world today has a real hope to move collectively toward democracy and prosperity, it is because for the past 60 years, since the end of World War II, there has been a clear alliance among almost all the nations of the West.
To endanger those links is the worst disservice that could be rendered to humanity and very especially to its poorest and most backward segments.