Originally published on the CGS blog on November 19, 2010.
The Need for Allies to Work Together to Address Global Issues
At an event on transatlantic relations sponsored by the Brookings Institution on Thursday, November 18th, policymakers from Europe and the United States expressed agreement on one key point: the need for nations to work together to solve global problems that no one nation can solve alone. If that idea sounds familiar, it’s because it’s one of the core beliefs of Citizens for Global Solutions.
The event, “President Obama in Europe: A Time For Reassessing Transatlantic Relations,” was held to present a new report on transatlantic relations from Brookings’ Center on the United States and Europe, timed to coincide with President Obama’s visit to Brussels for the NATO and U.S.-E.U. summits this week. Panelists included Paavo Lipponen, Former Prime Minister of Finland; Romano Prodi, former Italian Prime Minister and former European Commission President; and Jeremy Shapiro, Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of State on Europe and Eurasia at the U.S. State Department.
Lipponen described the report as an analysis of the transatlantic relationship in the post-Cold War, post-Bush presidency era, covering the transformation of the world’s political landscape from a bipolar to a unipolar and now to a multipolar international system. He stressed that today, the U.S. and the European Union both face huge problems, which they must work together to solve. Romano Prodi expressed similar sentiments, saying that the U.S. and E.U. have worked together in the past with great success, and must work together again now to deal with global problems and improve democracy. Prodi added that U.S. efforts to promote Europe benefit the United States, as America cannot solve all the world’s problems on its own.
Jeremy Shapiro followed up on the theme of international cooperation, saying that “the problems of the world require that we work together,” and that “global challenges can only be solved in partnership with different countries.” He called Europe a “critical partner” in such efforts, as it is the most prosperous and militarily capable of America’s allies, and shares America’s values as well. He added that both President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton, in their speeches, have emphasized the importance of multilateralism in international relations.
