E.U. Chief Reads Open Letter

Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, president of the European Commission, called for an alignment of U.S. and European interests in an “Atlantic agenda for globalization” at a lecture on the evolving relationship between the United States and the European Union yesterday.

The lecture, entitled “A Letter from Brussels to the Next President of the United States of America,” is part of the “Challenges of the 21st Century” series organized by Renée Haferkamp of the Center for European Studies.

But despite the politically-charged title, Barroso, head of the Union’s highest executive branch, kept his distance from the upcoming election. About the evolving U.S.-E.U. rapport, Barroso quipped “Europe is not what it was 10 years ago,” adding “more of the same will not suffice.”

Barroso, a former Portuguese prime minister educated in Lisbon, Geneva, and Washington, D.C., focused his remarks on what he saw as the dilemmas of an increasingly globalized, interdependent world. Citing the present financial crisis and violence in Georgia as examples of the interconnectedness of today’s world, he referred to challenges that had “no respect for national frontiers.”

Barroso pointed to the increasing utility of “soft power,” which he defined almost exclusively in diplomatic and cultural terms, in dealing with international crises.

Students and scholars in attendance said they shared Barroso’s enthusiasm for a global solution.

“You can’t just focus on the nation,” Benjamin M. Zagorsky ’12 said, noting the need for a future that transcends national borders. “The way he talks about [the future], it’s now,” Zagorsky said, speaking of Barroso’s optimistic depiction of our collaborative potential.

But the speaker’s criticism of American policy, muted throughout the main address, sharpened as questions streamed in from the floor. When pressured to give the European Union’s stance on China’s human rights record, Barroso said, “It is not by force that we will make China a democracy.”

Barroso also stressed the need for the next administration to focus on dialogue with the entire European Union, not just France, Germany, and Britain.

European students voiced their support for Barroso’s critiques. Speaking of the European Union’s perceived weakness in responding to the Russian aggression in Georgia, Clemence Charras, a French visiting student in Leverett House, said “It was very interesting how many Americans’ questions focused on the fragility of the Union.”

Barroso responded by noting that only the European Union’s proposal was able to halt the current violence. Contrasting the E.U. diplomatic method with America’s singular voice, he cautioned, “It is not because you are one that you are right.”

For Eleonore V. Peyrat, another visiting French student, Barroso’s response was a necessary one of strength and confidence.

“It was the first time I had heard something like that,” she said.