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Looking beyond the White House

Americans go to the polls on Tuesday to elect either Barack Obama or John McCain president, but Dr. Josef Braml from the German Council on Foreign Relations argues Berlin must look beyond the White House for good transatlantic ties.

Published: 3 November 2008 16:57 CET

Looking beyond the White House

Photo: DPA

In recent weeks I’ve been dreaming each night that the next US president will manage what no “America expert” has been able to do: make clear to the German public that US presidents are elected to champion American interests and not fulfill German wishes and desires.

I hope he will be able to explain to Germany’s countless America fans and groupies that he can’t walk on water and will only be able to implement his policy priorities with the support of his institutional counterparts in Congress – who will also be elected on Tuesday.

Many observers in Germany and Europe forget that Congress – that is the US House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate – face re-election this month as well. The two houses have a sizable impact on forming American foriegn policy within the US system of checks and balances. Representatives and senators are first and foremost fixated on the needs of voters in their districts or states. They are more guided by the positions of their local constituency than following party discipline on most issues. With the background of the current global financial crisis, this election could very well strengthen the already widespread protectionist and isolationist tendencies of many American legislators.

The mood of the American public and newly elected Congress will make it difficult for the next president to take a radically new course in US politics – which points to new potential transatlantic problems on the horizon. Disputes between the United States and Europe are likely to increase regardless who ends up winning the US presidential election, making it that much more important for German politicians to reach out to their American partners. That means not just focusing on who’s in the White House, but also giving more attention to members of Congress.

Dr Josef Braml is a member of the Transatlantic Relations department of the German Council on Foreign Relations.Translation by The Local.

Norway flirts with the idea of a 'mini Brexit' in election campaign

The Centre Party's leader Slagsvold Vedum has called for Norway's relationship with the European Union to be renegotiated. Photo: Gorm Kallestad / NTB / AFP

After eight years of a pro-European centre-right government, polls suggest the Scandinavian country is headed for a change of administration.

A left-green coalition in some shape or form is expected to emerge victorious, with the main opposition Labour Party relying on the backing of several eurosceptic parties to obtain a majority in parliament.

In its remote corner of Europe, Norway is not a member of the EU but it is closely linked to the bloc through the European Economic Area (EEA) agreement.

The deal gives Norway access to the common market in exchange for the adoption of most European directives.

Both the Centre Party and the Socialist Left — the Labour Party’s closest allies, which together have around 20 percent of voter support — have called for the marriage of convenience to be dissolved.

“The problem with the agreement we have today is that we gradually transfer more and more power from the Storting (Norway’s parliament), from Norwegian lawmakers to the bureaucrats in Brussels who are not accountable,” Centre Party leader Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said in a recent televised debate.

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Defending the interests of its rural base, the Centre Party wants to replace the EEA with trade and cooperation agreements.

However, Labour leader Jonas Gahr Store, who is expected to become the next prime minister, does not want to jeopardise the country’s ties to the EU, by far Norway’s biggest trading partner.

“If I go to my wife and say ‘Look, we’ve been married for years and things are pretty good, but now I want to look around to see if there are any other options out there’… Nobody (in Brussels) is going to pick up the phone” and be willing to renegotiate the terms, Gahr Store said in the same debate.

Running with the same metaphor, Slagsvold Vedum snapped back: “If your wife were riding roughshod over you every day, maybe you would react.”

EU a ‘tough negotiating partner’

Initially, Brexit gave Norwegian eurosceptics a whiff of hope. But the difficulties in untangling British-EU ties put a damper on things.

“In Norway, we saw that the EU is a very tough negotiating partner and even a big country like Britain did not manage to win very much in its negotiations,” said Ulf Sverdrup, director of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs.

While Norwegians have rejected EU membership twice, in referendums in 1972 and 1994, a majority are in favour of the current EEA agreement.

During the election campaign, the EU issue has gradually been pushed to the back burner as the Centre Party — which briefly led in the polls — has seen its support deflate.

The nature of Norway’s relationship to the bloc will depend on the distribution of seats in parliament, but experts generally agree that little is likely to change.

“The Labour Party will surely be firm about the need to maintain the EEA agreement,” said Johannes Bergh, political scientist at the Institute for Social Research, “even if that means making concessions to the other parties in other areas”.

Closer cooperation over climate?

It’s possible that common issues, like the fight against climate change, could in fact bring Norway and the EU even closer.

“Cooperation with the EU will very likely become stronger because of the climate issue” which “could become a source of friction” within the next coalition, Sverdrup suggested.

“Even though the past 25 years have been a period of increasingly close cooperation, and though we can therefore expect that it will probably continue, there are still question marks” surrounding Norway’s future ties to the EU, he said.

These likely include the inclusion and strength of eurosceptics within the future government as well as the ability of coalition partners to agree on all EU-related issues.

Meanwhile, Brussels is looking on cautiously. The EEA agreement is “fundamental” for relations between the EU and its
partners Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein, according to EU spokesman Peter Stano.

But when it comes to the rest, “we do not speculate on possible election outcomes nor do we comment on different party positions.”

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