The SOTU from a European Perspective

State of the Union speeches are first and foremost aimed at a domestic audience. This year’s SOTU was certainly no exception. With the US economy being Obama’s number one concern, this year’s SOTU was perhaps particularly domestically orientated. Nevertheless, there are some points that have a particular interest for a European.

Of direct consequence, of course, is the transatlantic cooperation.

Regardless of Obama’s popularity in Europe, it does not take much delving into the Obama administration’s foreign policy before it comes apparent that Europe has been deprioritized as a US partner. Europe’s leaders are well aware of this fact, and are none too pleased when this state of affairs is made apparent by, say, the President not showing up at the 20^th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall – or other real and perceived US snubs of the EU.

Europe did however merit a brief, positive, mentioning in the SOTU; “With our European allies, we have revitalized and increased our cooperation on everything from counter-terrorism to missile defense”, said Obama. The brevity of the reference can be attributed to the domestic nature of the speech, rather than Europe’s fall from grace. Due to this brevity, it is hard, from Europe’s perspective, to give an accurate interpretation of the comment. It is tempting to assume that Obama first and foremost considers NATO, not the EU, to be the main arena of the “revitalized and increased cooperation.” For example, in the run-up to the NATO and US-EU summits in Lisbon, November 2010 Obama focused heavily upon the NATO summit in a NY Times op-ed, and defined the EU, bunched together with the UN and OECD, as “complimentary” to NATO strengths.   

On the other hand, regarding the 2010 US-EU summit, it is worth noting that, well, Obama showed up (which he did not do in 2009); and that the Treaty of Lisbon had indeed culled the multitude of EU foreign policy representatives, and enabled a more efficient and focused summit. In brief, the EU has made some progress on presenting its US partner with a coherent foreign policy presence. It is also worth noting that the EU and the US have reached some noteworthy counter-terrorism agreements, such as the SWIFT agreement regarding the exchange of banking information. These developments do however not detract from the overall perception that the US considers the EU to be lacking, when it comes to high-end security policy.       

Looking at the SOTU on a deeper level, a particularly interesting aspect from a European perspective was Obama’s defense of government investment;

“I recognize that some in this chamber have already proposed deeper cuts, and I’m willing to eliminate whatever we can honestly afford to do without. But let’s make sure that we’re not doing it on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens.  And let’s make sure what we’re cutting is really excess weight. Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may feel like you’re flying high at first, but it won’t take long before you’ll feel the impact.”

Admittedly this quote is taken out of context. Much of the speech was related to the benefits of bipartisan policies. Nevertheless, the words have an almost social democratic ring to them. The merits of government investment have long been a mainstay of European politics.  

Considering the devaluation of Europe in the eyes of Washington, European’s can perhaps comfort themselves with the US absorbing European notions of the importance of government investment. Somewhat paradoxically, as Obama speaks of government investment, European countries bare to the bone public investment. Perhaps the two will meet somewhere in the middle?