Word: summiteer
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...question that the leaders of the 27 member states of the European Union had to address as they gathered in Brussels on Sept. 1 was whether words would be enough to answer its giant and unapologetically bellicose neighbor to the east. The meeting was only the third such emergency summit that E.U. leaders have held. The first came after the Sept. 11 attacks; the second, riven with discord, convened in the run-up to the Iraq war. This conclave is as unlikely to enter the hit parade of diplomatic history as the first two. The leaders condemned Russia's unilateral...
...reminder of how little the European Union can do to enforce its wishes against an unreasonable and powerful adversary, and a far cry from the "root and branch" review of Europe's relations with Russia that British Prime Minister Gordon Brown had called for on the eve of the summit...
...Closing Ranks That is due in part to concessions from the hard-liners. Before the Brussels summit, Polish President Kaczynski had complained that "the real decisions in this organization are being made between Berlin and Paris," and called the idea of a common policy toward Russia "laughable." But the more moderate Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk left for Brussels with an admonition for E.U. unity on his lips. "We want to lead the way," he said, "but we don't want to be radical." In the end, Kaczynski and the Baltic leaders came around to the widely held position that...
...Moscow responded with cool disdain to the E.U.'s deliberations. The Russian Foreign Ministry called the results "sufficiently predictable." It deplored the suspension of the trade talks, but suggested that Russia had grown accustomed to "artificial obstacles on the path to this document." On the eve of the summit, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev told Sarkozy - not for the first time - that Russian troops intended to pull out of the buffer zones in Georgia proper, raising the possibility that the ultimatum for the suspension of talks would quickly be rendered moot. "The majority of E.U. countries have manifested a responsible approach...
...Even if their Brussels summit produced familiar posturing, the E.U. leaders have learned a bit more to appreciate that unless they show unity and purpose in the face of threats, they will be seen as a pushover by the likes of Russia...