But two American senior officials, under-secretary of state William J. Burns and assistant-secretary of state Philip H. Gordon, attended a preparatory meeting for the summit two weeks ago in Madrid. They didn’t hint then that their President would decide not to attend.
The US State Department cites confusion caused by the Lisbon Treaty’s new institutional arrangements for the President’s absence from EU summit. Is Obama really confused by the power struggle between the Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero, who holds in the first half year of 2010 the rotating EU Presidency, and the new permanent EU President Herman Van Rompuy? The overzealous Zapatero has already visited Washington twice in the meantime to prepare the summit…
Probably Obama had also not forgotten the nightmare he endured at the Prague summit last year, when he found himself with strictly nothing of importance on the agenda, hosted by a Czech government which just had fallen but which still held the EU Presidency. At that meeting, American officials later complained, 27 national leaders waffled on at President Obama about exactly the same things, before fighting among themselves for photo opportunities with the new American president.
Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform in London, described the decision as a "wake-up call" to Europe from President Obama. ‘The European Union must realise that no one will court them because Europe is a nice idea. Obama clearly has no emotional identification with Europe. He has a cool analytical view of allies and partners. But when the Europeans can’t provide much to help America solve global security problems, Obama doesn’t want to spend too much time on it’, Grant said.
The Financial Times wrote that Lady Ashton, a Briton who was appointed the EU’s foreign policy high representative, has said that she knew in advance of President Obama’s decision because she had discussed the matter with Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state. May be in the future Lady Ashton might share such interesting information with her colleagues.
EU officials are now considering postponing the summit until the Autumn, with President Obama set to come to Portugal in November for a NATO meeting, and the summit might possibly be rescheduled for then. No problem for EU Council President Van Rompuy because at that point in time his home country Belgium will hold then the rotating EU presidency.
