Word: summiteer
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...American President in front of Queen Elizabeth II, after the official photo op at the G-20 in London ("Mr. Obamaaa! I'm Mr. Berlusconi!") was a lovely Borat moment - harmless, and quite funny. Talking on his mobile while Angela Merkel was waiting for him at the NATO summit? He was just showing off ("I can convince Turkish leader Erdogan to accept Rasmussen as head at NATO. Leave it to me, guys.") And when he told earthquake victims in Abruzzo to think of their situation "like a weekend of camping," sure, it didn't sound good to an outsider...
...watered down, it was of little wonder that leaders such as France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, Italian premier Silvio Berlusconi, Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown all found more productive things to do rather than attend the EaP launch summit. (Watch a TIME video with Gordon Brown...
Initially conceived to forge a new relationship between the European Union and six former Soviet republics, the May 7 summit launching the E.U.'s Eastern Partnerships accord wound up more like the first date from hell. Instead of feeling the welcoming embrace the program had promised, representatives from Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine instead got a European straight-arm designed to keep them at a safe distance. Indeed, given the manner in which the courtship has begun, some observers now wonder whether any of the parties involved can ever hope to make beautiful music together...
...something happened on the way to the EaP's founding summit - namely, the global recession. Many of the countries worst hit by the economic downturn are the same 12 nations that have joined the E.U. since 2004, most from Eastern Europe. Now not only are those post-Cold War newcomers - who used huge inflows of European development aid to build up U.S.-style economies - most in need of more emergency funding to prop up their credit-dependent markets, but they are also viewed as migrant threats to other E.U. nations already facing escalating unemployment. Not surprisingly, such factors have fueled...
...other words, if the six former Soviet republics came away from the Prague summit disappointed and confused, they aren't alone...