Secretary of State Colin L. Powell will depart tomorrow on a week-long trip to consult with an alphabet soup of European multilateral institutions and confabs, carrying a message that the second-term Bush administration is ready to work closely on forging what officials have dubbed "effective multilateralism."
President Bush announced this concept a year ago in a speech in London and in a joint statement with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but the administration officials did not pursue the idea aggressively during the election year. Now the concept is being revived.
Last week, in a speech in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Bush said he hoped to "foster a wide international consensus among three great goals." The first goal, he said, is "building effective multinational and multilateral institutions and supporting effective multilateral action."
Bush said the objective of multilateral institutions must not be "endless debate." He said the United States will work "as far as possible within the framework of international organizations," and he hoped other nations "will work to make those institutions more relevant and more effective in meeting the unique threats of our time."
State Department spokesman J. Adam Ereli said Powell's trip is an "opportunity to build on what the president said in Halifax, and the secretary is looking to further strengthen European-American ties."
Powell, who has announced his resignation, will leave office as soon as his successor, Condoleezza Rice, is confirmed by the Senate.
Powell will travel to Bulgaria, Belgium and the Netherlands for three major meetings with top European officials. He will end his trip in Morocco for the opening session of the "Forum for the Future," a new U.S.-European-Arab project to promote democracy and modernization in the Middle East and North Africa.
European diplomats have welcomed the shift in tone by the Bush administration but are still waiting to see whether actions follow the words. Powell was often considered the biggest advocate of multilateral approaches during the first Bush term, but now he is leaving. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who once dismissed European allies who opposed the war in Iraq as "old Europe," has retained his job.
In one possible sign of a new approach, senior White House officials have invited European ambassadors to meetings to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, democracy promotion in the Middle East and the election crisis in Ukraine. Bush's first overseas visitor after the election was the NATO secretary general, followed quickly by Blair. Bush also pledged to visit Europe early in his second term.
"We are making a deliberate and very visible effort of outreach to all of Europe," said an administration official, who described the U.S. strategy as not focusing on the U.S.-European relationship but instead on the common concerns both face outside Europe, in places such as Iran and Iraq. "Governments have noticed. It will take a while to filter down to the public" in Europe, where polls still show wide disapproval of Bush policies, especially in Iraq and the Middle East.
But Ivo H. Daalder, a former Clinton administration official who co-wrote, "America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy," said that beyond the nice words, he has yet to see a true shift in the administration's approach. Bush's "concept of effective multilateralism is to get people to agree with the United States," he said. "Ineffective multilateralism is to give other people a voice over our policies."
Daalder said it was odd that the administration is "hanging a future policy on a long-forgotten speech from a year ago. It only emphasizes that they think that giving a speech will change a perception of policy."
Powell, in an interview Friday with Reuters, said that during his trip, he will "reinforce the point that the president wants to reach out." But he added that not only the United States should attempt to mend relations.
"I think Europe also has to reach out toward us," Powell said. "We have to meet one another here and not just say, 'Come on, United States, it's all your fault. You heal these breaches.' "
