From the European Voice: [I]t was 15 years ago, during an earlier Spanish EU presidency, that the US and the EU signed the New Transatlantic Agenda (NTA), the most ambitious programme for US-European co-operation to date.
Mirroring its stance in 1995, the Spanish government has announced that transatlantic relations will be a key focus of its six months at the helm, including an updating of the NTA. The US and the EU should be circumspect, however, about how much they want to make 2010 sound like 1995…
[N]either the US nor the EU needs another laundry list outlining all the potential areas for transatlantic co-operation. Instead, what the US and the EU require is a concise, focused work programme setting out overarching priorities – four to five for the EU and an equivalent number on the US side – where each thinks it needs the other for success, along with a timetable and road-map for arriving at joint positions. These goals may be complementary, conflicting or somewhere in between, but at least such a document would demonstrate to the world that the US and the EU know how to think strategically about their relationship in a difficult global context, and make a meaningful contribution to global stability and progress. (photo: EFE)