Word: graffe
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...Compiled by Garrett M. Graff and Nicole M. Cederblom...
...face of the European Union's nascent common foreign policy is High Representative Javier Solana, the former NATO Secretary-General. Before heading off to Macedonia for more troubleshooting last Friday, he spoke about transatlantic relations with Brussels bureau chief James Graff...
...James Graff: At best you can say they've agreed to disagree. The atmosphere of the talks was positive, by all accounts, and they're all emphasizing the "indispensable partnership" between Europe and the U.S. But each side was never going to convince the other to change its view of the Kyoto Accord, nor would it have been politically productive for President Bush to try and convince the Europeans to change their position...
...James Graff: It clearly went a lot better than many people had expected, judging from readouts on the NATO meeting. At the press conference afterwards, the President was clearly very pumped up, self confident and expansive rather than on the defensive. We'll have to see what the various NATO allies say on background to journalists, but the White House feels that it got through this without any NATO members seriously questioning the existence of the threat that missile defense is meant to counter. So it was a diplomatic success and a success in terms of Bush's first trip...
...Graff: There was a lot of concern in the NATO session over Macedonia, with President Chirac insisting that the alliance should do anything to stop it getting out of hand. That was perceived to mean that if the situation deteriorated, France might push for direct deployment of alliance troops. Still, nobody's talking about that yet - the emphasis is on getting the government to make constitutional changes to address the grievances of the ethnic Albanians, and there's some concern over the level of competence of the Macedonian government, which tends to focus either on making war or making constitutional...