Word: european
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When George Bush and Gordon Brown held their first joint press conference last summer, there seemed to be little chemistry between the two leaders. How times have changed. A visit to London and Belfast by the President on June 15-16, the finale of his week-long European tour, showed just how much common ground he shares with the British Prime Minister...
...handful of London demonstrators brandished the slogan WAR CRIMINAL at Bush's distant motorcade. On this trip the turnout for such protests was low (why waste effort on a man on his way out?), but many Europeans still see Iraq as the President's defining, and corrosive, legacy. Bush gave a startlingly wistful interview to the British newspaper The Times before embarking on his European trip, which took him to Slovenia, Germany, Italy, France and the United Kingdom. "I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone [on Iraq], a different rhetoric," he said. By the time...
...however, France appears ready to return to the NATO fold. On Tuesday, President Nicolas Sarkozy unveiled a 15-year military plan that aims to deepen France's involvement with its NATO and European allies in the fight against post-9/11 threats. And critically, he indicated that France will soon rejoin NATO's military command, even if its nuclear forces would remain under strictly national control. "We can renew our relations with NATO without fearing for our independence and without the risk of being unwillingly dragged into a war," Sarkozy said...
...France has been creeping back toward NATO for more than a decade. Under President Jacques Chirac, Paris rejoined NATO's military committee of chiefs of staff in 1996, but the rapprochement was cut short after the U.S. refused to share more power with European countries in the integrated military structure...
...French step toward NATO would have be in line with the European Union's efforts to build up its own fledgling security and defense capacity, Heisbourg said. If France - the fifth largest contributor to NATO - becomes a more co-operative transatlantic ally, it is likely to find stronger backing for E.U. defense projects among NATO's European members. "If and when it happens, it would reflect the strides that had been taken in European security and defense policy," he says, adding that further steps on that policy are anticipated during the French presidency of the E.U., from July to December...